THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


CRITICAL  AND  SOCIAL 


ESSAYS 


REPRINTED   FROM 


THE    NEW-YORK    NATION 


NEW     YORK 

LEYPOLDT    &    HOLT 

1867 


Entered  according  to  the  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1867,  by 

E.   L.    GODKIN    &    CO., 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States,  for  the 
Southern  District  of  New  York. 


JOHN  F.  TROW  &  Co., 

PRINTERS,  STEREOTYPERS,  AND  ELECTROTYPERS, 

50  Greene   Street,  New  York. 


GIFT 


cri 


CONTENTS. 


I.   The  Glut  in  the  Fiction  Market.  ..December  6,  1866  I 

II.  Critics  and  Criticism July  6,  1865  1 1 

III.  Clergymen 's  Salaries March  22,  1866  19 

IV.  Popularizing  Science January  10,   1867  27 

V.    The  Good  Old  Times February  I,  1866  41 

VI.    Why  wt»  have  no  Saturday  Reviews.  ...Nov.  15,  1866  47 

VII.    Tinkering  Hymns Jttly  26,  1866  65 

VIII.  American  Ministers  Abroad February  14,  1867  69 

IX.  Horse- Racing October  1 1,  1 866  79 

X.  Some  of  Our  Social  Philosophers June  15,  1866  89 

XI.    Waste March  8,  1866  97 

XII.  Dress  and  its  Critics .January  4,  1866  105 

XIII.    The  Social  Influence  of  the  National  Debt 

July  13,  1865  113 

XIV.  Hints  for  Fourth  of  July  Orations. .  .June  28,  1866  119 

XV.  American  Refutations  in  England. . .  .Jan.  1 8,  1866  127 

XVI.    The  European   and  American   Order  of  Thought, 

October  12,  1865  137 


IV  CONTENTS. 

Page 

XVII.  Roads yune  Uj  lg66  J45 

XVIII.  Pews January  2$,  1866  155 

XIX.  A  Connecticut  Village August  17,  1865  163 

XX.    Voyages  and  Travels January  3,  1867  177 

XXI.    Verse-Making. May  x>  l866  ,g5 

.  Something  About  Monuments Augttst  3,  1865  193' 

XXIII    Our  Love  of  Litxttry April  iB-May  2,  1867  205 

XXIV.  A  Plea  for  Culture February  21,  1867  215 

XXV.  Curiosities  of  Longevity March  8,  1866  223 


THE  GLUT  IN  THE  FICTION  MARKET. 


IT  is  told  of  Carlyle  that  once  when  he  was  thor 
oughly  fatigued  in  body  and  mind  by  the  labor  of  pro 
ducing  one  of  his  works,  and  had  then  been  almost 
thrown  into  despair  because  of  the  sudden  and  total 
destruction  of  his  manuscript  before  a  word  of  it  had 
gone  to  the  press,  he  shut  himself  up  alone  in  his  room 
and  deliberately  read  through  the  complete  works  of 
Captain  Marryatt.  This  singular  proceeding  certainly 
appears  to  have  in  it  something  of  that  quality  of  mind 
which  earned  for  the  sage  of  Chelsea,  from  some  of  the 
irreverent,  the  title  of  "  The  Incoherent  Thomas."  He 
was  able,  though,  to  give  a  sound  reason  for  his  seem 
ingly  absurd  and  inconsequent  behavior.  He  wanted, 
he  said,  to  induce  in  his  mind  a  perfect  vacuity  of 
thought,  and  could  hit  upon  no  other  expedient  so  well 
adapted  to  his  purpose.  Why  he  should  have  chosen 
Captain  Marryatt  in  preference  to  a  hundred  or  two 
others  it  is  not  easy  to  see.  We  may  plausibly  account 
for  it  by  supposing  that  one  day  in  the  times  when  he 
plied  the  birch  at  Ecclefechan  school  he  had  occasion 
to  confiscate  certain  dirty-looking  paper-covered  books 
1 


2  The  Glut  in  the  Fiction  Market. 

there  undergoing  a  surreptitious  reading,  and  himself 
cast  a  philosophic  ,eye  pyer.  fhftir  contents  and  marvelled 
what  mariner  of.mtm!  this '.captain  in  the  royal  navy 
could^be.;  .W&belie-ve.he.found'ln's  experimental  course 
of  I^hantbm  'Snips  aM.Snarleyyow  the  Dog-Fiend  and 
Smallbones  and  Lieut.  Vanslyperken  and  Midshipman 
Easy  and  the  ward-room  life  on  board  H.M.S.  Calliope 
all  that  he  expected,  and  since  reads  no  more  novels. 

From  late  information  we  infer  that  the  British  pub 
lic  in  general  are  getting  to  be  of  his  mind.  News 
comes  from  the  other  side  of  the  water  that  Mudie's 
and  the  other  great  circulating  libraries  no  longer  order 
each  new  novel  by  the  hundred  or  the  thousand,  as  has 
been  their  practice  hitherto.  If  at  first  this  seems  al 
most  incredible,  a  longer  consideration  makes  it  appear 
extremely  probable,  and,  indeed,  almost  necessarily 
true.  It  is  true  enough  that  now  for  a  long  time  the 
number  of  novels  issuing  from  the  British  press — not 
of  single  volumes  but  of  separate  works,  and  not  inclu 
sive  of  reprints  but  of  new  books,  and  not  inclusive  of 
translations  but  exclusively  of  books  of  home  produc 
tion — has  been  on  an  average  about  two  a  week.  Sup 
pose  this  "  vicious  fecundity "  to  have  lasted  for  thirty- 
six  years,  since  1830,  in  which  year  the  crop  of  fictions 
gathered  into  the  British  Museum  was  one  hundred  and 
one  works,  then  in  the  eighteen  hundred  and  seventy- 
two  weeks  since  that  time  there  have  been  printed  in 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland  about  three  thousand  seven 
hundred  and  forty-four  novels,  and  to  this  mass  of  fic 
titious  literature  we  must  add,  before  the  reckoning  is 


The  Glut  in  the  Fiction  Market.  3 

complete,  an  enormous,  an  almost  incalculable,  heap  of 
short  stories  and  tales  and  sketches  for  magazines.  If, 
now,  it  should  seem  not  possible  that  a  people  demon- 
strably  so  infatuated  with  novel-reading,  a  people  for 
whom  this  vast  quantity  of  novel-writing  is  done,  should 
ever  learn  to  do  without  it  and  dislike  it,  we  must  re 
member  that  the  vast  quantity  itself  which  they  have 
already  devoured  is  the  best  of  reasons  why  their  stom 
achs  should  at  last  begin  "  to  loathe  this  light  food." 

For  how  old  a  story  the  modern  novel  has  latterly 
got  to  be  !  Of  course,  there  are  plenty  of  reasons  why 
this  should  be  so.  "  Mankind,"  according  to  that  Jaco 
bin  whom  Emerson  once  met, — "  mankind  is  a  d d 

fool ;"  and  this  we  are  obliged  to  confess  a  very  just 
remark.  At  any  rate,  it  is  never  very  probable,  we 
may  say,  that  the  thought  which  the  mass  of  novelists 
will  be  able  to  offer  their  readers  will  be  anything  par 
ticularly  new  or  good ;  and  as  to  imagination,  of  what 
value  to  anybody  would  be  the  imaginations  of  a  fool 
of  the  kind  above  specified  ?  So  the  great  majority  of 
our  fellow  creatures,  it  should  seem,  are  disqualified 
for  the  production  of  novels,  we  do  not  say  enduring, 
but  endurable.  And,  in  point  of  fact,  the  creators  of 
characters  in  each  generation  of  writers  may  usually  be 
counted  on  the  fingers.  Even  of  creators  of  character, 
by  no  means  every  one  after  he  has  conceived  and 
formed  his  characters  is  able  so  to  manage  their  inter 
relations,  so  contrive  their  action  on  each  other,  and 
join  consequence  to  adequate  cause,  as  to  make  his 
creations  seem  like  rational  animals.  At  any  given 


4  The  Glut  in  the  Fiction  Market. 

period,  then,  the  conditions  being  so  severe,  there  may 
possibly  be  living  in  the  world  a  single  consummate 
artist  in  this  species  of  writing.  Writing  in  any  one 
language  there  may  perhaps  be  one  or  two  great  novel 
ists  and  three  or  four  clever  ones,  and  the  scores  upon 
scores  of  others  will  constitute  the  herd,  and  supply  us 

with  our  Cudjo's  Caves  or  our  Miss  Gilbert's  Careers 

that  is,  with  novels  without  novelty,  with  simulacra  of 
characters  for  characters,  and  guiltless  of  thought,  or 
guilty  of  false  thinking  and  false  sentiment. 

How  aged  most  of  the  incidents  are  !  It  was  six 
teen  or  seventeen  hundred  years  ago,  when  Lucius 
of  Corinth,  being  on  his  way  to  Hypata,  in  Thessaly, 
fell  in  with  Aristomenes,  the  commercial  traveller,  who 
beguiled  the  time  by  relating  his  adventures  at  a  cer 
tain  inn.  For  years  past,  and  for  years  to  come,  many 
a  Mr.  Baggs  has  told,  and  will  tell,  his  similar  tales  to 
the  readers  of  English  periodicals.  And  if  there  are 
any  more  lives  of  noted  highwaymen  remaining  to  be 
written,  we  suppose  the  Clipper  will  show  us  once  again 
the  robbers'  cave  precisely  as  Apuleius  describes  it  for 
us,  and  as  we  have  since  had  it  in  the  history  of  Six- 
teen-String  Jack,  of  Turpin,  of  Paul  Clifford,  of  Gil 
Bias,  and,  not  to  name  a  myriad  others,  of  the  Knight 
of  La  Mancha.  It  was  fifteen  or  sixteen  centuries  ago 
that  Theagenes,  happening  to  go  into  the  temple  at 
Delphos,  found  there  the  beautiful  Chariclea,  and  be 
came  at  once  enamored ;  and  what  man  will  undertake 
to  compute  the  great  cloud  of  heroines — Italians,  Span 
iards,  and  French  and  English,  and  dwellers  in  the 


The  Glut  in  the  Fiction  Market.  5 

isles  of  the  sea — who  have  captivated  the  heroes  under 
the  same  circumstances.  We  make  no  doubt  that  the 
lives  of  a  pair  of  lineal  descendants  of  Heliodorus's 
harassed  lovers  will  be  put  on  record  in  the  January 
number  of  "  Harper's."  Something  like  this  it  may  be  : 
"Yes,  it  was  settled  that  the  church  should  be 
trimmed  for  Christmas,  and  we  young  people  were 
glad — the  rest,  because  of  the  merry  meetings  when  the 
evergreen  was  gathered ;  and  I,  because  my  artistic 
nature  craved  better  food  than  the  bleak,  bare  walls, 
and  the  pine-backed  seats  of  our  meeting-house.  Ah ! 
how  I  longed  in  those  days  for  glorious  Italy  and  di 
vine  Florence,  and  the  crowned  Niobe  of  nations  tiara- 
ed  with  the  dome  of  Angelo !  And  though  Aunt 
Eunice  and  the  deacon  thought  it  '  right  down  popery,' 
yet  I  think  they  were  not  ill-pleased  when  the  stately 
Mrs.  Havisham,  our  pale,  aristocratic  neighbor,  who 
had  recently  bought  the  great  house,  and  filled  it  with 
such  statuary  as  my  eyes  hungered  to  see,  drove  up  in 
her  pony  carriage,  and  insisted  that  '  Miss  Carrie  [Chari- 
clea]  must  at  once  come  up  to  the  church.'  "  We  shall 
read  how  Chariclea  pleaded  that  the  hospital  patients 
needed  her  services,  and  the  sewing  for  the  soldiers 
was  unfinished ;  but  how  Mrs.  Havisham  still  insisted 
and  urged  that  "your  deft  white  hands  and  your  artist 
sense  are  absolutely  needed,"  and  told  her  how  that 
smallest  sketch — "  the  weird,  wild  sky,  the  pallid  green 
ocean,  the  shallop,  with  its  one  figure,  driven  upon  the 
close-reefed  shore  " — had  wonderfully  impressed  the 
great  artist,  Merle  Danforth,  who  had  emphatically  de- 


6  The  Glut  in  the  Fiction  Market. 

clared  that  Miss  De  Lorme's  talents  were  God-given, 
and  should  be  cultivated ;  and  how,  at  last,  though  her 
dress  was  rather  scant  for  the  bitter  weather,  and  she 
knew  she  should  meet  Keene  Vandyke  and  Isopel 
Kavanaugh,  and  Dr.  Effingham  and  Hal  Lenoir,  she 
decided  to  go ;  and  how  Tracy  Havisham  (Theagenes), 
arriving  to  visit  his  sister,  gazed  intently  at  her  with 
clairvoyant  eyes  of  mystic  power ;  how,  finally,  despite 
Isopel  Kavanaugh,  and  forged  letters,  and  suppressed 
letters,  and  a  wild  purchase  of  a  railroad  ticket  and  a 
dream-like  ride  to  a  city  where  Merle  Danforth  might 
be  found,  and  despite  a  fever  and  a  declaration  of  love 
from  Merle,  she  grew  in  the  art-sense,  painted  more 
weird  pic;;, res,  and,  at  last,  married  Tracy  Havisham. 

The  future  writer  in  "  Harper's,"  as  well  as  the 
past  writers  in  that  magazine,  who  hash  up  the  early 
romancers  for  us,  sin  in  a  great  company  ;  like  mathe 
maticians,  as  you  may  say,  they  "  go  with  numbers  to  do 
evil."  For,  in  regard  to  this  particular  novel  of  the 
Bishop  of  Tricca's,  those  learned  in  these  things  count 
among  his  imitators,  or  among  those  who  have  stolen 
from  him,  Achilles  Tatius,  and  half  a  dozen  other  great 
story-tellers— Gomberville,  Scuderi,  Guarini,  D'Urfe, 
Tasso,  Richardson,  Hardy,  Dorat — and  of  these  each 
in  turn  has  his  imitators.  And  as  we  come  down  the 
ages  and  reach  the  times  when  novels  divide  them 
selves  into  various  particular  classes,  the  case  is  no 
better,  but  worse.  The  characters  are  old  acquaint 
ances,  the  combinations  have  either  all  been  made  be 
fore,  or  are  not  worth  making,  or  both,  and  the  book 


The  Glut  in  the  Fiction  Market.  7 

gets  itself  read  by  virtue  of  some  small  thing  which 
differences  it  from  its  brethren  and  sisters,  or  because 
its  brethren  and  sisters  have  gone  to  undeplored  forget- 
fulness.  Why  should  a  veteran  customer  of  Mudie's 
read  any  more  of  the  ordinary  novels  ?  He  discerns 
the  end  from  the  beginning,  and  he  is  familiar  with  all 
the  stages  by  the  way,  in  all  the  novels — the  novel  of 
English  life  and  manners ;  of  Scotch  or  Irish  life  and 
manners ;  of  American  life  and  American  manners ; 
the  novel  of  military  or  naval  life ;  the  ecclesiastical 
novel ;  the  muscular  Christianity  novel ;  the  novel  that 
dissects  the  hero  and  reveals  the  melancholy  heart  and 
moody  mind  of  the  hero,  and  puts  them  together  again, 
and  marries  him  at  last,  and  so  solves  the  problem  of 
the  universe;  the  novel  of  crime j  the  detective  novel, 
and  all  the  rest.  What  a  weariness  it  must,  by  this 
time,  have  become  to  the  veteran  to  think  of  going 
down,  by  still  another  express  train,  to  one  more  coun 
try  house,  where  he  shall  see  the  same  dowagers,  the 
same  wit,  the  same  captains  in  the  East  India  Company 
or  the  Queen's  service ;  the  same  big  woman  and  the 
same  small  one,  and  assist  at  the  regular  lunching  and 
cricket  and  croquet  and  love-making ;  and,  by-and-by, 
the  man  of  business  comes  down,  and  there  is  a  con 
tested  election  and  the  return  of  Lionel,  or  there  is  an 
elopement  and  the  flight  of  Lady  Agnes ;  and  then  to 
think  of  returning  to  town  and  meeting  the  old  set  at 
the  clubs,  in  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  at  the  ride  in 
the  Park  where  he  meets  her,  at  the  evening  party 
where  he  and  she  dance,  in  the  dining-room  whence 


8  The  Glut  in  the  Fiction  Market. 

the  old  lord  retires  to  his  blue-books,  in  the  richly-fur 
nished  bachelor's  apartments  where  the  young  baronet 
discovers,  the  day  after  the  Derby,  that  he  is  ruined, 
and  where  he  meditates  matrimony,  or  whence  he  sets 
->ut  for  Calais  and  a  Spa.     Why  should  not  he  know, 
who  has  patronized  Mudie  for  ten  years,  whose  arm  is 
to  be  broken  in  the  first  volume,  and  whom  the  sufferer 
is  to  marry ;  whether  or  not  there  is  to  be  an  elope 
ment  ;  who  is  the  real  murderer ;  where  the  missing  will 
is  hid ;  what  has  become  of  the  lost  son ;  whether  or 
not  young  Gully,  full  of  pluck,  will  be  able,  by  smoking 
a  short  black  pipe  and  reading  hard  and  swimming  on 
the  coast  of  Devonshire,  to  convince  himself  that  he 
has  a  soul  to  be  saved,  that  Christianity  is  the  thing  to 
save  it,  and  that  Queen  Elizabeth  had  auburn  and  not 
red  hair  ;  and  whether  Mopeington  Crevecceur,  who  is 
conscious  of  his  inside,  will  or  will  not  achieve  true  no 
bility  of  character  and  a  practical  if  not  critical  knowl 
edge  of  the  New  Testament  by  giving  up  lying  and  lyrical 
poetry  and  light  food,  and  taking  to  service  in  the  Cri 
mean  war  and  a  beard  and  pluck  and  beef?     The  pa 
tron  of  Mudie's  knows,  as  well  as  if  he  had  made  them 
himself,  the  noble  but  too  free-handed  and  somewhat 
embarrassed   Irish   gentleman   who    has    one    lovely 
daughter ;  the  other  Irish  gentleman,  not  so  noble,  but 
equally  free-handed  and  even  more  embarrassed,  who 
has  five  or  six  strapping  daughters  and  a  fighting  son 
in  the  army,  and  dogs  galore,  who  lives  to  hunt  and 
drink,  and  whose  tenantry  resist  a  process ;  the  young 
lady  who  lets  the  poet  love  her  but  wants  the  duke, 


The  Glut  in  the  Fiction  Market.  9 

whereby  cultivation  and  gain  through  sorrow  accrue  to 
the  poet ;  the  young  gentleman,  Mordaunt,  a  favorite  of 
women  of  the  world  and  respected  by  men,  who  is  the 
soul  of  honor,  has  nursed  his  genius  in  solitude,  goes 
to  college,  where  he  forms  a  friendship  with  Trevylyan 
the  future  statesman,  and  learns  to  quote  Plotinus  and 
Tully,  and  distinguish  between  The  Ideal  with  a  big  I 
and  ideal  with  a  small  i.  He  is  familiar,  perhaps  to 
the  point  of  contempt  and  past  it,  with  the  young  gen 
tleman  who  takes  a  double-first  and  distinguishes  him 
self  at  the  bar  ;  with  the  rector  who  leans  towards  cross- 
bearers  and  incense,  and  calls  a  Protestant  "a  Prot. ;" 
with  the  whist-playing  rector,  whose  wife  the  butcher 
hates ;  with  the  bluff  young  man  with  the  cynical 
mouth  and  kindly  eyes,  who  has  the  air  of  putting 
his  young  friends  in  his  waistcoat-pocket  and  talking 
gruffly  to  them,  but  who,  under  the  influence  of  tobacco, 
appears  as  a  man  with  a  hidden  grief  which  he  fights 
with  and  grandly  buttons  into  a  Petersham  coat ;  with 
the  yellow-headed  murderess  and  the  purple-browed 
magnificent  leopardess  of  a  bigamist,  and  the  gray- 
faced  female  poisoner  in  whose  thin  cheek  no  blush 
arises  when  she  is  tried  in  court ;  with  the  Alpine 
tourist  and  the  young  lady  who  sighs  all  up  the  Rhine, 
but  in  Florence,  in  the  picture  gallery,  sees  Edward 
watching  her ;  with  the  absentee  landlord  and  the  bil 
liard-sharper,  the  banker  and  the  reviewer,  the  Jew 
money-lender  and  the  bailiff,  the  policeman  and  the 
governess,  and  the  solitary  horseman,  and  the  faker 

with  his  "  nix  my  dolly  "  pals,  the  young  man  who  has 
!* 


io  The  Glut  in  the  Fiction  Market. 

a  place,  and  the  good-natured  young  man  who  shoots 
and  is  never  in  the  way,  and  thousands  more  too  nu 
merous  and  too  well  known  to  mention.  Unless  he 
has  Carlyle's  excuse,  the  aged  novel-reader  may  as  well 
stop  his  subscription.  And  there  is  no  good  reason 
why  the  American  reader  should  persevere  longer  than 
his  British  cousin.  He  has  already  read  the  Scarlet 
Letter  and  the  House  of  Seven  Gables,  and  the  Blithe- 
dale  Romance,  and  half  a  dozen  of  Cooper's,  and  two 
of  Mrs.  Stowe's — and  if  he  has  not  read  also  some  of 
Miss  Prescott's  and  Hot  Corn  and  Queechy  and  sev 
eral  others  he  is  very  lucky — and  he  may  as  well  stop. 
Somebody  may  perhaps  by-and-by  invent  something 
which  will  be  an  improvement  on  our  realistic  school 
of  writing  fiction  and  our  doctrinal  dead-in-earnest  and 
dead  novel,  and  then  the  regiments  of  people  who  have 
to  have  a  model,  having  a  new  one,  may  be  less  tire 
some  than  at  present,  and  Mudie's  department  of  fic 
tion  may  reach  again  its  old  importance.  Meantime 
we  have  among  us  still  the  woman  who  wrote  Romola, 
and  the  man  who,  if  he  did  write  Our  Mutual  Friend, 
wrote  David  Copperfield,  and  was  father  and  sponsor 
of  Mr.  Richard  Swiveller,  and  Mr.  Samuel  Weller  and 
his  Prooshian  Blue  of  a  parent,  Mr.  Tony  Weller  ;  and 
we  may  be  thankful,  too,  for  the  writer  of  Christie 
Johnstone  and  The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth,  and  for 
the  author  of  that  work  of  a  good  heart,  John  Halifax. 


CRITICS  AND  CRITICISM. 


THE  opinions  are  opposite  as  the  poles.  Some  au 
thors,  and  distinguished  ones,  too — Irving  was  one, 
Bulwer  is  another,  Lowell  another,  though  professing 
to  be  also  of  the  "ungentle  craft"  himself— maintain 
that  your  critic  is  a  most  unnecessary  nuisance,  a  pesti 
lent  fellow,  who  tears  the  works  of  better  men  to  pieces, 
because  he  can  produce  nothing  good  himself,  and 
makes  it  his  business  to  look  for  spots  in  the  sun,  and 
calumniate  the  icicle  on  Diana's  temple.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  critic  not  unfrequently  proclaims  himself  a 
fine  gentleman,  for  whose  amusement  the  author  writes. 
He  discusses  the  book  as  he  would  a  newly  furnished 
house  or  a  state  dinner.  Talk  to  him  of  writing  books 
himself!  Must  Amphitryon  be  able  to  fry  an  omelette 
or  Lucullus  to  concoct  meringue  before  he  ventures  to 
find  fault  with  Soyer's  cotelettes  d  la  Reformed  Is 
Brummell  disqualified  for  passing  judgment  on  Stultz's 
coats  because  he  has  never  handled  the  shears  himself? 

Equally  opposite  are  the  theories  about  the  critic's 
genesis.  There  was  the  old  one  of  Queen  Anne's 
time,  that  he  owed  his  life  to  the  corruption  of  an  au- 


12  Critics  and  Criticism. 

thor,  and  merely  sought  to  revenge  his  own  failures  on 
more  successful  rivals.  There  is  the  modern  theory, 
upheld,  if  not  suggested,  by  Thackeray,  that  the  critic 
is  generally  an  immature  author,  who  jests  at  scars  be 
cause  he  never  felt  a  wound,  and  is  prone  to  exaggerate 
the  errors  because  he  has  never  experienced  the  diffi 
culties  of  serious  authorship. 

On  this  debatable  ground  we  shall  be  more  likely 
to  go  safely  by  taking  a  middle  path.  In  political  diffi 
culties  the  boldest  course  is  sometimes  the  most  pru 
dent,  and  nothing  short  of  "thorough"  will  carry  us 
through  j  but  in  questions  of  taste  it  is  always  wise  to 
keep  clear  of  extremes,  for  taste  is  eminently  eclectic. 
It  is  quite  possible  for  a  man  to  become  a  competent 
critic  without  ever  passing,  or  intending  to  pass,  through 
the  stage  of  authorship.  It  is  no  paradox  to  call  criti 
cism  a  very  subordinate  and  yet  a  very  important 
branch  of  literature,  just  as  the  constable,  though  of  no 
exalted  official  rank,  is  an  indispensable  portion  of  the 
political  framework.  A  man  may  be  born  with  a  large 
share  of  the  appreciative  and  discriminative  faculties, 
which  may  have  been,  as  they  most  certainly  are, 
capable  of  being  largely  improved  by  education,  at  the 
same  time  he  may  be  entirely  destitute  of  the  creative 
and  imaginative  faculties,  which,  unless  given  by  na 
ture,  no  education  can  implant.  Indeed,  there  must 
be  such  men,  since  the  former  qualities,  though  rare 
enough,  are  less  rare  than  the  latter.  A  man  thus  in 
tellectually  furnished  can  never  write  anything  like  a 
first-class  novel  or  poem  ;  indeed,  he  is  not  very  likely 


Critics  and  Criticism.  13 

to  make  the  attempt ;  but  he  can  criticise  novels  and 
poems  to  any  extent. 

The  case  of  translators  is  analogous.  We  often 
hear  it  said  that  none  but  a  poet  can  translate  poetry. 
The  assertion  is  plausible ;  but  who  would  maintain 
that  none  but  a  historian  can  translate  a  historiar 
that  it  requires  a  Macaulay  or  a  Merivale  to  render  a 
Michelet  or  a  Thierry?  Yet  the  rule  ought  to  hold 
good  for  both,  if  at  all,  although  the  author's  tempta 
tion  to  improve  on  his  original  shows  itself  differently ; 
the  poet's  alterations  would  be  made  in  the  text,  the 
historian's  would  be  expressed  in  notes  and  comments. 
It  is  unfortunate  that  as  a  musician  who  plays  well 
enough  to  accompany  nicely  will  seldom  condescend  to 
accompaniment,  so  those  whose  talents  and  education 
best  fit  them  for  translating  are  generally  prone  to  aim 
at  original  composition.  Take  a  wort*,  of  learning  and 
research.  The  critic  may  be  the  author's  superior  in 
knowledge  of  the  subject,  yet  may  never  think  of  writ 
ing  such  a  book,  either  for  want  of  the  steady  industry 
necessary,  or  from  the  press  of  other  avocations,  or 
even  from  deficiency  in  pecuniary  means,  since  learned 
authorship  in  most  countries  is  generally  a  rich  and 
sometimes  a  very  expensive  luxury. 

But  why  not  give  up  the  business  of  criticism  to  au 
thors  themselves  ?  For  various  reasons.  In  one  sense 
they  are  much  too  good  for  it — that  is,  the  best  of  them 
are.  It  is  cutting  blocks  with  a  razor,  and  putting 
Pegasus  into  harness.  A  man  of  real,  original  creative 
power  is  better  employed  in  producing  something  him- 


*  4  Critics  and  Criticism. 

self  than  in  criticising  the  productions  of  others.  Here 
again  translation  furnishes  us  with  analogies.  Thus  it 
is  highly  probable  that  Tennyson  might  have  achieved 
the  best  English  version  of  the  "  Iliad  "  ever  written, 
but  how  much  better  for  the  reading  public  and  the 
world  of  letters  that  he  wrote  Maud  and  the  Princess  ! 

In  other  cases,  they  are  not  good  enough.  And 
the  reason  is  twofold.  In  the  first  place,  authors,  like 
the  rtst  of  mankind,  are  subject  to  the  influence  of  pro 
fessional  jealousy.  In  nine  cases  out  of  ten  such  a 
charge  against  the  critic  would  be  absurdly  irrelevant. 
He  might  as  well  be  taxed  with  envying  a  general  or  a 
Congressman.  The  only  circumstances  under  which  a 
critic  can  be  reasonably  suspected  of  attacking  an  au 
thor  from  this  motive  are  these  :  Either  he  has  written 
a  work  on  the  same  subject,  and  failed — for  if  he  has 
succeeded  he  passes  into  the  class  of  authors,  as  the 
greater  takes  precedence  of  the  less— or  he  has  a  work 
on  the  same  subject  in  contemplation,  and  may  feel 
annoyed  at  the  wind  being  taken  out  of  his  sails.  But 
the  author  is  always  tempted  to  find  another  author  on 
similar  subjects  a  possible  rival  in  his  way. 

Then,  putting  all  bad  motive  out  of  the  question, 
the  author  is  less  apt  to  criticise  fairly  than  the  critic, 
because  he  is  more  apt  to  be  one-sided.  His  very 
ability  is  likely  to  make  him  intense  in  one  direction, 
so  that  he  will  overvalue  his  own  method  of  treatment. 
The  critic  is,  by  profession,  as  it  were,  many-sided,  a 
proposition  which  we  have  already  expressed  in  other 
words  by  saying  that  taste  is  eminently  eclectic.  If, 


Critics  and  Criticism.  15 

though  one-sided,  he  obtains  a  reputation,  as  in  Rus- 
kin's  case,  it  is  because  his  excellences  of  style  give 
him  a  position  as  an  author  independent  of  the  value  of 
his  critical  opinions.  Byron  strikingly  illustrates  both 
these  disqualifications.  The  former  affected  his  judg 
ment  of  Shelley,  the  latter  his  judgment  of  Wordsworth. 
It  is  often  assumed  that  the  relations  of  critics  are 
only  to  authors,  or  at  most  to  authors  and  the  public. 
This  is  a  very  inadequate  statement;  their  relations  to 
publishers  are  even  more  important  From  one  ^  ^ 
of  view  the  publisher  is  the  public's  natural  ^nemy,  and 
the  critic  their  natural  protector.  Now  and  then  we 
find  a  chivalric  Moxon,  who  publishes  a  whole  genera 
tion  of  poets  from  pure  love  of  poetry.  But  such  are 
exceptions.  Publishers,  like  most  men,  usually  pursue 
their  calling  from  a  desire  to  make  money  by  it,  nor  is 
this  fact  more  discreditable  to  them  than  to  any  other 
class.  But,  like  all  dealers,  the  publisher  is  sometimes 
mistaken  in  the  quality  of  his  wares ;  he  sometimes 
buys  or  agrees  to  print  a  work  which  would  not  find 
favor  on  its  own  merits.  This  want  of  merit  he  is  too 
often  tempted  to  supply  by  systematic  and  unblushing 
puffery.  In  this  country  (and  England  and  France  are 
no  better  off)  there  is  quite  as  much  "shoddy"  litera 
ture  as  any  other  kind  of  deceptive  goods  disposed  of 
under  the  falsest  pretences.  To  take  the  lowest  view, 
this  is  an  imposition  on  the  public.  Every  man  who 
pays  a  dollar  or  two  for  a  worthless  book  is  directly 
swindled  by  the  puffing  publisher  and  the  venal  "  notice- 
writer  "  who  have  deluded  him  into  the  purchase. 


*6  Critics  and  Criticism. 

It  must  not  be  inferred  from  anything  which  has 
been  said  that  we  accept  the  ungracious  theory  of  those 
who  make  it  the  critic's  business  always  and  solely 
to  find  fault.  But  the  multitude  of  sham  reviewers, 
whose  chief  stock  in  trade  consists  of  unmeaning  adu 
lation,  may  well  make  us  forget  that  the  American  critic 
has  any  laudatory  functions.  And  at  present,  we  be- 
vveve  that  these  are  more  wisely  employed  on  subjects 
than  on  individuals.  There  are  some  branches  of  lit 
erature  cind  learning  (classics  and  general  philosophy, 
-  for  instance)  jn  which  the  scarcity  of  valuable  American 
works  is  deplorable,  ^nd  this  is  in  a  great  measure 
owing  to  the  want  of  Accomplished  critics,  who  might 
awaken  a  public  cariosity  in  that  direction.  The 
special  branch  of  art-criticism  has  some  peculiarities 
arising  from  the  nature  of  its  subject-matter.  Every 
critic  is  in  some  sense  an  author— that  is,  he  writes  for 
publication ;  the  art-critic  may  also  be  an  artist,  but  it 
is  not  considered  necessary  that  he  should  be  in  any 
sense.  But  we  can  only  allude  to  this  division  of  our 
subject,  the  proper  handling  of  which  would  require  a 
separate  paper  to  itself. 

In  a  new  country  like  ours,  the  public  mind  passes 
through  three  stages  before  it  is  fully  prepared  to  fur 
nish  or  appreciate  complete  and  well-balanced  criticism. 
First,  there  is  the  chaotic  or  embryo  period,  when  the 
whole  energy  of  the  people  is  employed  in  overcoming 
physical  obstacles.  Literature  and  art  are  then  re: 
exotics,  and  their  votaries  run  the  risk  of  being  consid 
ered  very  eccentric,  if  not  absolutely  mad.  There  are 


Critics  and  Criticism.  17 

men  enough  living  who  recollect  this  stage.  Then  suc 
ceeds  the  childish  age,  or  that  of  promiscuous  and  often 
silly  admiration.  The  last  stage  before  reaching  the 
day  of  true  criticism  is  a  reaction  from  this,  a  period  of 
indiscriminate  censure.  In  art-criticism  we  seem  to 
have  arrived  at  the  third  stage,  or  at  least  to  be  very  near 
it.  In  literature  we  are  not  yet  well  out  of  the  second, 
though  many  spirited  attempts  have  been  made  at  in 
tervals  for  thirty  years  or  more  to  push  us  out  of  it ; 
usually,  as  in  Park  Benjamin's  case,  for  instance,  they 
failed  to  make  any  permanent  impression  or  meet  the 
appreciation  which  they  deserve^.  We  really  think 
that  before  our  criticism  comes  to  merit  the  name,  it 
will  have  to  pass  through  this  stormy  and  belligerent 
stage,  a  period  like  that  of  English  criticism  during  the 
first  quarter  of  the  century.  The  great  mischief  has 
always  been  that  whenever  our  reviewers  deviate  from 
the  usual  and  popular  course  of  panegyric,  they  start 
from  and  end  in  personality,  so  that  the  public  mind  is 
almost  sure  to  connect  unfavorable  criticism  with  per 
sonal  animosity.  Any  review  thus  inspired  is  worth 
exactly  its  weight  in  Confederate  paper.  The  critic 
ought  to  know  the  author  only  through  his  book ;  he 
should  have  the  least  possible  personal  knowledge  of 
him,  should  be  ignorant  (or  at  least  affect  to  be  igno 
rant)  whether  he  is  rich  or  poor,  handsome  or  ugly,  mar 
ried  or  single,  whether  his  grandmother  was  a  Presi 
dent's  sister,  or  his  second  cousin  is  a  New  York 
alderman.  Above  all,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  that 
there  should  not  be  a  shadow  of  personal  difficulty  be- 


1 8  Critics  and  Criticism. 

tween  them.  With  this  proviso,  we  believe  our  authors 
themselves  would  not  be  sorry  for  a  little  less  butter 
and  a  little  more  pepper ;  we  are  certain  it  would  do 
them  good,  whether  they  liked  it  or  not. 


CLERGYMEN'S  SALARIES. 


A  PROMINENT  religious  journal,  with  abundant  abil 
ity  to  procure  information,  and  the  strongest  motives 
for  ensuring  accuracy,  has  published  the  following  state 
ment  of  the  rates  of  compensation  paid  to  clergymen 
in  the  State  of  Connecticut.  The  figures  are  taken 
from  the  minutes  of  the  General  Association.  From 
these  minutes  it  appears  that  three  pastors  have  no  pay 
whatever;  one  has  $100;  one,  $200;  one,  $300;  nine 
have  $400 ;  thirty-three,  $500 ;  one  hundred  and  four, 
$1,000 ;  forty,  $1,500;  sixteen,  $2,000;  four,  $2,500; 
and  three,  $3,000  a  year.  No  salary  of  more  than 
three  thousand  is  mentioned  ;  the  average  remuneration 
in  the  several  counties  is  given  thus  :  in  Windham  Co., 
$653  ;  in  Tolland  Co.,  $728  ;  in  Middlesex  Co.,  $819  ; 
in  New  London,  $848  ;  in  Litchfield,  $880 ;  in  Fair- 
field,  $1,044;  in  Hartford,  $1,060;  in  New  Haven, 
$1,127. 

This  statement  respecting  the  condition  of  ministers 
of  religion  in  New  England,  and,  of  all  places,  in  Con 
necticut,  the  stronghold  of  New  England  orthodoxy, 
even  where  it  excites  no  surprise,  must  awaken  serious 


2o  Clergymen's  Salaries. 

reflection  on  the  religious  state  of  the  community.  The 
largest  salary  mentioned  in  the  table  is  insufficient  for 
the  support  of  a  man  and  his  family  in  days  like  these  ; 
and  but  three  ministers  receive  that.  Fifty-six  receive 
what  at  the  best  is  scarcely  more  than  a  pittance  ;  and 
forty-six  receive  less  than  a  pittance.  These  men  must 
eat  and  drink,  and  have  wherewithal  they  may  be 
clothed,  even  if  they  are  not  over-anxious  about  such 
things.  They  must  have  a  roof  over  their  heads. 
They  are  generally,  we  may  presume,  married  j  at  all 
events  marriage  is  a  privilege  which  cannot  be  refused 
them.  They  have  families  of  children,  large  in  propor 
tion  to  the  smallness  of  the  stipend.  They  are,  more 
over,  in  most  cases,  educated  men,  whose  mental  fur 
niture  has  cost  money,  and  is  so  much  capital  invested 
in  their  profession.  Their  profession  demands  all 
their  time,  as  at  present  conducted.  It  leaves  no  leisure 
for  other  means  of  obtaining  a  livelihood  ;  and  if  it  did 
leave  leisure,  it  leaves  no  ability  or  aptitude  for  money- 
making  pursuits.  Its  duties,  by  their  very  nature,  dis 
qualify  men  for  practical  affairs ;  they  carry  both  mind 
and  will  far  away  into  regions  remote  from  every  kind 
of  market,  even  from  the  market  of  literature.  Their 
time,  their  strength,  their  feelings,  sympathies,  efforts, 
even  their  flaccid  purses,  are  incessantly  and  merciless 
ly  d.rawn  upon  by  all  sorts  of  people,  who  make  them 
do  their  work  for  them,  and  offer  them  no  compensa 
tion,  often  not  even  gratitude,  for  important  services. 
The  poorest  class  in  the  community,  they  are  the  most 
pitifully  fleeced  class  in  the  community. 


Clergymen 's  Salaries.  21 

It  is  urged  that  they  are  the  most  privileged  class, 
too ;  that  they  are  universally  honored  and  beloved ; 
that  the  best  social  position  is  cheerfully  awarded  to 
them  as  by  right ;  that  all  doors  are  open  to  them  ;  that 
they  are  admitted  to  intimacies  such  as  no  other  class 
of  men  are  indulged  with ;  that  they  enjoy  the  distinc 
tion  of  being  reckoned  a  purely  disinterested  and  self- 
sacrificing  order  of  men,  whose  reward  is  very  certain 
in  the  next  world,  and  whose  impecuniosity  in  this  life 
is  abundantly  compensated  by  the  wealth  of  good-will 
that  is  lavished  upon  them.  All  this  is  willingly  con 
ceded,  so  far  as  the  social  privilege  and  the  parochial 
affections  are  concerned,  but  we  cannot  see  the  rele 
vancy  of  such  considerations  to  the  case  in  hand,  so 
long  as  all  this  social  privilege  and  saintly  fame  amount 
to  so  much  practical  impoverishment.  "  Fair  words 
butter  no  parsnips. "  In  this  case  they  cause  the  trans 
fer  of  the  parsnips  to  another  man's  mouth.  A  reputa 
tion  for  disinterestedness  is  a  very  fine  thing,  but  it 
will  not  pay  the  shoemaker,  or  the  schoolmaster,  or  the 
stationer,  and  it  goes  a  very  little  way  towards  paying 
the  bookseller.  It  is  fair,  perhaps,  that  one's  love  for 
his  neighbor  should  make  him  rich  for  the  next  world, 
but  his  neighbor's  love  for  him  should  put  something 
in  his  pocket  for  this  world  ;  and  this  precisely  it  fails 
to  do. 

The  argument  that,  on  the  whole,  ministers  receive 
about  as  much  as  they  are  worth,  is  plausible  at  the 
first  glance,  but  it  has  no  force.  For  why  are  they  not 
worth  more  ?  Simply  because  they  have  no  means  to 


22  Clergymen's  Salaries. 

make  themselves  worth  more.  Their  natures  are 
starved  by  their  poverty.  Mental  nutriment  cannot  be 
obtained,  for  papers,  magazines,  pamphlets,  books,  the 
only  and  the  indispensable  food  for  the  mind,  are  very 
expensive.  They  cannot  enlarge  their  observation  or 
increase  their  experience  of  the  world  by  travel ;  they 
cannot  profit  by  the  stimulus  of  better  minds,  for  they 
gain  no  access  to  the  intellectual  centres  where  such 
minds  congregate.  Their  health  surfers  from  enforced 
confinement  to  one  spot  summer  and  winter.  No 
variety  of  scene  or  of  influence  changes  their  mood  or 
refreshes  their  spirit.  No  inspiration  from  mountain 
or  ocean  gives  them  new  hope  and  vigor.  What  can 
be  expected  from  men  shut  under  the  cover  of  an  ex 
hausted  receiver  ?  Where  is  the  stuff  for  sermons,  or 
for  prayers,  or  for  spiritual  consolation  and  quickening 
to  come  from  ?  The  spirit  is  powerful  and  should  be 
put  to  its  power ;  ministers  should  not  be  so  well  paid 
that  they  can  dispense  with  it,  or  that  it  can  dispense 
with  them ;  but  certain  temporal  conditions  must  be 
conceded  in  order  that  the  spirit  may  work  at  all. 

That  these  conditions  are  less  faithfully  met  now 
than  they  were  in  former  times,  we  have  no  right 
to  say.  Probably  they  are  not.  Perhaps  the  clergy 
are  as  much  respected  as  they  ever  were.  We  have 
seen  no  proof  that  their  stipend  has  anywhere  been 
diminished.  But  that  is  not  the  point.  The  stipend 
should  be  greatly  increased  to  meet  the  material  and 
the  intellectual  demands  of  the  time.  The  scale  of 
prices  in  the  intellectual  world  has  kept  up  with  the 


Salaries.  23 

scale  of  prices  in  the  phyiscal  world.  It  costs  at  least 
as  much,  in  proportion  to  the  requirements  of  the  last 
generation,  to  keep  a  man's  mind  fully  up  to  the  stand 
ard  of  culture  at  present  maintained,  as  to  keep  the 
man  himself  up  to  the  same  mark  of  animal  comfort. 
The  old  salaries,  even  when  eked  out  as  they  used  to 
be  with  the  minister's  fire-wood  or  an  occasional  barrel 
of  potatoes,  are  not  enough,  nor  anything  like  enough. 
Ministers  never  were  paid  sufficiently ;  and  the  reason 
why  they  are  not  paid  sufficiently  now  must,  in  our 
judgment,  be  sought,  not  in  any  local  or  incidental 
change  in  the  public  mind  towards  them ;  not  in  any 
altered  relation  between  them  and  their  parishioners ; 
not  in  any  disrespect  or  coldness  towards  them  as  a 
class ;  but  rather  in  certain  general  dispositions  which 
we  can  by  no  means  applaud,  but  which  we  must  wait 
on  with  such  patience  as  we  can  command. 

We  account  for  the  general  "exploiting"  of  the 
clergy,  first,  by  the  fact  that  men  will  not  pay  more  for 
any  kind  of  service  than  they  are  obliged  to  pay  in 
order  to  have  it ;  and  as  women,  and  clergymen,  who 
are  supposed  to  be  a  cross  betwixt  men  and  women, 
are  in  the  habit  of  taking  what  is  given  them  as  a  favor, 
making  no  remonstrance,  they  are  kept  without  com 
punction  on  starvation  prices.  People  wonder  how 
they  live ;  but  so  long  as  they  do  live  and  do  not  rebel, 
it  is  presumed  they  are  content.  It  will  be  soon  enough 
to  pay  more  when  they  demand  more.  In  the  next 
place,  the  uneducated  lay  people — be  they  farmers, 
shop-keepers,  mechanics,  traders,  or  even  merchants — 


24  Clergymen's  Salaries. 

have  no  comprehension  of  the  wants  of  intellectual 
men  ;  no  doubt  in  many  respects  they  fancy  their  own 
wants  to  be  greater.  They  can  understand  that  the 
minister  may  need  less  meat  and  drink,  being  of  a 
"spiritual"  mind;  that  he  can  dispense  with  carved 
furniture  and  heavy  draperies,  with  mirrors  and  Wilton 
carpets,  with  paintings  and  bronzes,  and  such  like  gauds 
of  the  world ;  but  they  do  not  understand  how  neces 
sary  it  is  that  he  should  have  books,  magazines,  so 
ciety,  and,  above  these  even,  that  intellectual  repose, 
that  freedom  from  anxiety,  which  to  themselves  would 
be  simply  intolerable.  They  therefore  make  provision 
neither  for  the  things  he  is  supposed  not  to  wish  for 
because  he  is  "unworldly,"  nor  for  the  things  they 
cannot  see  that  he  wants  because  he  is  intellectual. 
They  starve  his  flesh  because  he  is  not  carnal,  and  they 
starve  his  spirit  because  they  do  not  know  what  it  is 
to  be  spiritual. 

But  more  cogent  than  either  of  the  two  reasons  as 
signed  for  the  low  rate  of  ministerial  compensation  is, 
probably,  a  third  reason,  namely,  a  general  want  of 
appreciation  of  ministerial  service.  That  such  want 
of  appreciation  should  be  found  in  New  England  is 
very  remarkable,  and  is  a  strong  evidence  of  the  fact 
that  people  usually  are  indifferent  to  all  affairs  but  their 
own.  In  New  England  no  class  of  men  are  practically 
of  more  value  than  the  clergy,  and  the  same  is,  to  a 
large  degree,  the  case  in  all  our  communities.  Besides 
preaching  and  doing  pastoral  work  in  families  on  all 
the  most  trying  occasions  of  life,  they  are  the  general 


Clergymen's  Salaries.  25 

patrons  of  education  and  the  superintendents  of  char 
ity.  They  serve  diligently  on  school  committees,  they 
supply  lectures  for  lyceums,  they  are  called  on  for  ad 
dresses  on  all  occasions ;  they  perform  a  vast  deal  of 
literary  work  that  seems  to  belong  to  nobody  in  par 
ticular  ;  they  manage  benevolent  enterprises  and  work 
the  associations  that  are  organized  for  the  benefit  of 
the  poor,  the  unfortunate,  the  abused ;  they  save  time 
and  money  to  the  whole  community,  as  the  community 
would  soon  feel  were  their  efforts  to  be  suspended. 
In  small  towns  they  are  useful  in  keeping  alive,  even 
in  creating,  the  taste  for  literature,  art,  and  cultivated 
intercourse.  They  start  the  book  clubs  ;  they  form  the 
reading  circles ;  they  encourage  the  debating  societies ; 
they  lead  in  refined  entertainments.  All  this  is  worth 
money,  and,  if  estimated  at  its  value,  would  bring 
money.  Such  a  class  of  men  should  not  be  treated  as 
worthless  and  unaccountable  rubbish. 

How  it  is  to  end  no  (5ne  can  certainly  say.  We 
venture  the  opinion,  however,  that  matters  will  not  go 
on  from  bad  to  worse.  The  religious  sentiment  must 
have  organized  and  instituted  expression  in  the  com 
munities  of  men.  When  the  present  profuse  experi 
ments  in  lecturing,  lay  preaching,  "  inspirational  utter 
ance,"  and  trance  speaking  shall  have  been  fairly  tried, 
it  will  be  found,  we  doubt  not,  that  the  best  way  of  ob 
taining  wise  and  useful  religious  teaching  is  to  have  a 
class  of  men  gifted  for  it,  educated  in  it,  and  devoted  to 
it  through  their  lives.  We  are  inclined  to  believe,  too, 
that  the  need  of  such  a  class  will  be  recognized  more 
2 


26  Clergymen's  Salaries. 

as  the  people  advance  in  intelligence.  Increased  cul 
ture  will  bring  increased  appreciation  of  culture  in  this 
highest  form  of  knowledge ;  and  instead  of  reducing 
the  ministry  to  yet  lower  terms,  if  lower  be  possible, 
rational  men  will  supply  them  with  more  abundant 
means  of  support,  will  exact  of  them  higher  service, 
and  will  hold  them  in  greater  honor  than  before. 


POPULARIZING   SCIENCE. 


THESE  are  the  days  of  popular  lectures  and  familiar 
treatises  on  scientific  subjects.  Let  a  discussion  arise 
among  scientific  men  on  any  subject  not  narrowly  tech 
nical,  and  there  is  immediately  an  effort  to  throw  the 
weight  of  the  popular  applause  into  this  scale  or  that. 
If  a  scholar  has  any  large  project  at  heart — a  great 
book  to  publish,  a  museum  or  an  observatory  to  found — 
he  must  appeal,  not  to  some  one  Maecenas,  but  to 
masses  of  people ;  he  must  fascinate  two  or  three  hun  - 
dred  average  American  legislators ;  he  must  deal  skil 
fully  with  reporters  and  editors ;  he  must  exhibit  his 
disinterestedness,  enthusiasm,  and  learning  before  large 
audiences  ;  he  must  be  constantly  before  the  public  in 
newspapers,  periodicals,  and  popular  books.  For  the 
noble  patron  we  have  substituted  the  long  subscription 
list.  We  read  with  an  agreeable  feeling  of  superiority 
the  obsequious  dedications  to  fools  of  high-born  patrons 
which  great  scholars  of  other  generations  put  in  the 
front  of  their  works.  Is  it  quite  sure  that  the  processes 
by  which  some  of  our  scholars  propitiate  their  patron, 
the  public,  are  any  more  consistent  with  self-respect, 


28  Popularizing  Science. 

independence,  and  mental  uprightness  ?  It  must  be 
admitted  that  the  process  by  which  science  is  popular 
ized  nowadays  is  one  fraught  with  distinct  dangers  both 
to  the  speakers  or  writers  themselves  and  to  the  public 
whom  they  address ;  to  the  speakers,  because  when  a 
retiring,  single-minded,  unworldly  student,  who  is  really 
capable  of  successfully  investigating  the  hidden  things 
of  nature,  is  converted  into  an  eloquent  orator  on  sci 
entific  topics,  a  ready  debater,  or  a  plausible  advocate 
of  his  own  opinions,  the  change  is  not  for  the  advan 
tage  of  the  individual ;  to  the  public,  because  they  are 
too  apt  to  be  fed  with  loose  and  inaccurate  statements, 
with  sweeping  generalizations,  with  false  facts  and  false 
logic,  with  appeals  to  their  prejudices  and  preconcep 
tions  rather  than  to  their  reason. 

We  find  some  good  illustrations  of  the  temptations 
to  which  even  genuine  scientific  men  are  in  these  days 
exposed  in  the  printed  reports  of  a  course  of  lectures 
lately  delivered  before  a  popular  audience  in  Boston 
by  the  eminent  naturalist,  Agassiz.  To  persuade  his 
hearers  of  the  absurdity  of  the  theory  of  progressive 
development  was  the  main  purpose  of  the  lecturer,  al 
though  the  lectures  were  largely  made  up  of  descrip 
tions  of  the  physical  characteristics  and  natural  history 
of  Brazil.  It  is  not  our  present  intention  to  question 
the  fairness  of  presenting  to  a  large  popular  audience 
only  one  side  of  a  controversy  like  that  upon  the  theory 
of  Darwin,  although  it  seems  clear  that  a  just  disputant 
would  state  his  adversaries'  argument  with  precision, 
if  only  to  refute  it ;  neither  do  we  desire  to  call  atten- 


Popularizing  Science.  29 

tion  to  the  not  infrequent  inconsistencies  of  the  lec 
turer's  own  arguments ;  the  climax  of  Prof.  Agassiz's 
argument,  contained  in  the  concluding  sentence  of  the 
last  lecture,  will  best  illustrate  what  we  feel  to  be  the 
dangerous  tendencies  of  the  present  methods  of  popu 
larizing  science — "We  are  the  children  of  God,  and 
not  the  children  of  monkeys."  In  the  first  place,  this 
argument  is  grossly  unjust  to  that  decided  majority  of 
living  naturalists  who  have  accepted  and  extended 
Darwin's  views ;  for  it  implies  that  they  deny  the  Fa 
therhood  of  God.  It  is  precisely  this  implication  which 
wins  the  applause  of  an  indiscriminating  audience,  but 
no  aspersion  could  be  more  unwarrantable.  The  be 
lief  that  the  whole  animate  creation  was  developed 
from  a  single  germ  is  no  more  inconsistent  with  a  firm 
faith  in  the  universal  and  incessant  action,  through  all 
nature,  of  an  intelligent  will,  than  our  knowledge  that 
every  human  being  grows  to  adult  stature  out  of  an 
egg  in  which  no  trace  of  organization  is  perceptible  is 
inconsistent  with  the  literal  acceptance  of  the  beautiful 
faith  that  in  God  "  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  be 
ing."  To  assert,  or  imply,  that  the  development  hy 
pothesis  is  atheistic,  is  to  assert  that  growth  goes  on 
without  God,  than  which  there  can  hardly  be  a  more 
impious  idea.  A  little  four-year-old  was  told  that  God 
made  him.  Measuring  off  a  few  inches  on  his  arm,  he 
wrathfully  replied,  "  No,  he  didn't !  God  made  me  a 
little  mite  of  a  thing  so  long,  and  I  growed  the  rest  my 
self !"  This  is  just  the  opinion  of  the  theologians  and 
naturalists  who  would  recognize  God  in  spasmodic 


30  Popularizing  Science. 

creations,  but  admit  him  to  no  share  in  regular  growth; 
this  is  precisely  the  wisdom  of  those  who  teach  that 
man  is  less  the  child  of  God  if  his  body  was  the  natural 
outgrowth  of  less  perfect  organisms  than  if  it  was  a  de 
tached  and  abrupt  creation  out  of  the  earth,  water,  and 
fire  after  the  Promethean  fashion.  No  scientific  lec 
turer  has  a  right  to  use,  before  a  popular  audience,  an 
argument  which  could  not  be  addressed  to  an  assem 
blage  of  his  peers  in  science.  The  mischief  of  mis 
representing  the  views  of  sincere  opponents  is  graver 
in  proportion  to  the  incompetency  of  the  audience  to 
allow  for,  or  correct,  the  misrepresentation. 

But  the  argument,  "We  are  the  children  of  God, 
and  not  the  children  of  monkeys,"  admirably  illustrates 
another  temptation  which  besets  popular  lecturers ;  it 
is  an  appeal  to  a  popular  prejudice  by  a  man  who  has 
no  such  prejudice  himself.  It  is  an  unwelcome  idea  to 
an  ignorant  man  that  there  is  any  natural  connection 
between  monkeys  and  himself.  That  man  is  an  im 
proved  monkey  is  a  repugnant  thought  to  the  common 
mind,  just  as  it  would  be  disagreeable  for  a  New  York 
Democrat  to  believe  that  a  white  man  is  a  bleached 
negro.  Indeed,  considered  as  an  argument  against  the 
Darwinian  hypothesis,  Prof.  Agassiz's  appeal  to  the 
monkey  prejudice  can  only  be  compared,  for  irrele 
vancy  and  inconclusiveness,  to  the  well-known  Dem 
ocratic  clincher,  "  Do  you  want  your  daughter  to  marry 
a  nigger  ?"  We  are  the  more  astonished  at  such  an 
argument  against  Darwinism  from  Prof.  Agassiz,  be 
cause  no  one  has  stated  more  distinctly  and  positively 


Popularizing  Science.  31 

than  Prof.  Agassiz  himself  that  man's  physical  nature 
connects  him  directly  with  the  animals,  and  that  the 
debasement  of  which  man  is  capable  is  due  to  the  fact 
that  he  is  thus  descended  from  the  beasts  that  perish. 
Four  or  five  years  ago,  Prof.  Agassiz  delivered  a  course 
of  lectures  at  the  Lowell  Institute,  in  Boston.  These 
lectures  were  then  printed  in  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly," 
and  finally  they  were  collected  in  a  volume  which  has 
had  a  wide  circulation  under  the  title  of  "  Methods  of 
Study  in  Natural  History."  On  the  yist  page  of  this 
book  we  read  :  "  Man  is  the  crowning  work  of  God  on 
earth ;  but  though  so  nobly  endowed  we  must  not  for 
get  that  we  are  the  lofty  children  of  a  race  [the  verte 
brates]  whose  lowest  forms  lie  prostrate  within  the 
water,  having  no  higher  aspiration  than  the  desire  of 
food ;  and  we  cannot  understand  the  possible  degrada 
tion  and  moral  wretchedness  of  man  without  knowing 
that  his  physical  nature  is  rooted  in  all  the  material 
characteristics  that  belong  to  his  type,  and  link  him 
even  with  the  fish."  Truly,  if  the  discussion  concern 
ing  the  Darwinian  theory  is  to  be  reduced  to  a  question 
of  man's  ancestry,  it  may  turn  out  that  the  popular  ma 
jority  will  prefer  the  monkey  to  the  fish ;  between  the 
baboon  on  the  one  hand  and  the  sculpin  or  hornpout 
on  the  other,  many  would  think  that  the  baboon  was 
the  most  desirable  ancestor,  both  on  the  score  of  intel 
ligence  and  of  personal  appearance.  Prof.  Agassiz  has 
already  got  so  far  as  to  think  he  can  see  a  resemblance 
between  the  head  of  an  adult  skate  and  that  of  a  human 
embryo ;  on  page  3 1 7  of  the  book  already  quoted  he 


32  Popularizing  Science. 

says :  "  The  resemblance  of  an  adult  skate,  especially 
in  the  configuration  of  the  face,  the  form  of  the  mouth, 
the  position  of  the  nostrils,  the  arrangement  of  the  gills, 
to  some  of  the  earlier  conditions  in  the  growth  of  the 
young  mammal,  not  excepting  the  human  family,  is 
equally  striking." 

The  popular  lecturer  on  science  is  exposed  to  still 
a  third  temptation :  speaking  usually  on  subjects  with 
which  his  audiences  have  but  very  slight  acquaintance, 
he  is  checked  by  no  fear  of  competent  criticism  of  his 
method,  or  of  any  immediate  reply  to  loose  or  incor 
rect  statements.  Like  the  clergyman,  the  lecturer  suf 
fers  from  his  very  exemption  from  the  incessant,  viva 
voce,  face-to-face  discussions  and  debates  which  are  the 
everyday  lot  of  most  men.  Accustomed  to  assume 
that  his  audiences  know  little  or  nothing  of  subjects 
with  which  he  has  been  long  familiar,  he  finally  comes 
to  underrate  the  intelligence  and  attainments  of  his 
auditors  ;  his  lectures  become  more  and  more  diluted  ; 
the  hour's  dish  of  discourse  contains  but  a  spoonful 
of  meat ;  next  he  becomes  careless  in  stating  facts ; 
and  finally  a  fatal  contempt  for  his  hearers  betrays  him 
into  using  methods  of  reasoning,  argument,  and  illustra 
tion  which  are  plausible  but  not  sound,  taking  but  not 
true.  Who  can  blame  him  if,  when  he  has  made  a 
misstatement  twenty  or  thirty  times  without  contradic 
tion,  or  has  repeatedly  won  applause  with  some  fanci 
ful  guesswork  or  specious  fallacy,  he  at  last  begins  to 
flatter  himself  that  his  misstatements  are  true,  his 
guesswork  what  ought  to  be  true,  and  his  fallacies  good 


Popularizing  Science.  33 

logic  ?  Every  man  who  has  followed  college  or  medical- 
school  courses  of  lectures  has  seen  abundant  illustra 
tions  of  all  these  points  among  lecturers  on  science. 
We  may  again  refer  to  Prof.  Agassiz's  former  Lowell 
lectures,  the  "  Methods  of  Study  in  Natural  History " 
above  mentioned,  because,  as  there  can  be  no  question 
as  to  his  real  knowledge,  the  careless  confidence  bred 
of  long  impunity  is  the  only  explanation  of  the  frequent 
occurrence  of  most  curious  misstatements,  even  after 
the  lectures  have  been  twice  revised  for  the  press. 
Thus  we  are  told  (p.  69)  that  every  vertebrate  has 
four  locomotive  appendages,  whereas  whales,  dugongs, 
manatees,  and  porpoises  have  only  two.  On  page  74, 
it  is  stated  that  in  "  the  insects  there  are  three  nervous 
centres,  the  largest  in  the  head,  a  smaller  one  in  the 
chest,  and  the  smallest  in  the  hind  body."  The  fact  is 
that  there  is  one  principal  centre  in  the  head,  three  in 
the  chest,  which  are  sometimes  blended  into  two  or 
even  one,  and  ordinarily  from  nine  to  four  centres  in 
the  abdomen,  which  are  sometimes  fused  together  to 
a  less  number  of  centres,  and  very  exceptionally  to  one 
centre.  On  page  114  it  is  positively  asserted  that  the 
seal  "  has  no  power  of  bending  the  wrist  or  the  fingers," 
whereas  every  boy  who  has  seen  a  trained  seal  at  an 
aquarium  knows  that  a  seal  can  grind  a  hand-organ 
with  an  easy  flexible  motion  of  the  wrist.  A  popular 
book  on  science  is  worse  than  useless  if  it  be  not  accu 
rate  ;  no  amount  of  rhetoric  can  atone  for  heedless 
errors  in  matters  of  fact.  The  lately  published  "  Geo 
logical  Sketches,"  the  second  book  in  which  Prof. 
2* 


34  Popularizing  Science. 

Agassiz  has  endeavored  to  exhibit  to  unscientific  read 
ers  the  futility  of  the  Darwinian  hypothesis,  is  liable  to 
the  same  criticism  as  the  "  Methods  of  Study  in  Natural 
History."  The  scientific  journals  which  have  noticed 
this  later  work  have  given  long  lists  of  the  errors  in 
matters  of  fact  which  abound  upon  its  pages. 

But  graver  reasons  remain  to  be  considered.  Popu 
lar  lectures  and  popular  treatises  on  scientific  topics 
have,  since  the  days  of  the  Bridgewater  Treatises,  done 
an  infinite  mischief  in  fostering  two  amazing  conceits, 
originally  invented  by  theologians,  but  strengthened 
and  confirmed  in  the  popular  mind  by  teachers  of  nat 
ural  science.  The  first  of  these  conceits  is  the  notion 
that  the  boundless  universe  was  made  and  is  main 
tained  for  man's  sole  use  and  benefit ;  that  its  raison 
d'etre  is  man's  education,  development,  and  happiness  ; 
that  its  laws  are  specially  adapted  for  the  training  of 
the  human  intellect  through  the  study  of  them ;  and 
that  all  its  wonders  and  beauties  are  expressly  provided 
for  the  enjoyment  of  the  little  creature  which  for  a  few 
of  God's  minutes  has  been  pottering  about  on  a  small 
fraction  of  the  outside  crust  of  one  little  speck  of  a 
planet. 

We  are  inclined  to  laugh  at  the  argument  urged 
against  the  Copernican  system  by  the  religious  authori 
ties  of  those  days — that,  as  man  is  the  central  and  ul 
timate  object  of  creation,  it  must  be  that  man's  dwelling 
place  is  the  centre  around  which  all  other  spheres  re 
volve.  But  this  generation  is  less  logical  than  the 
monks  who  persecuted  Copernicus  :  we  cling  to  the 


Popularizing  Science,  35 

superstition  that  the  heavens  and  the  earth  were  creat 
ed  for  man's  sole  behoof,  although  we  know  that  the 
species  lives  in  an  obscure  corner  of  a  limitless  uni 
verse,  of  which  man  can  see  and  understand  and  use 
only  an  infinitesimal  fraction.  The  popular  scientific 
books  of  the  day  are  full  of  the  assumption  that  man 
is  the  summit  of  creation  and  the  ultimate  object  of 
the  Creator  in  contriving  and  directing  the  material 
universe. 

The  second  false  idea,  pregnant  with  danger,  which 
popular  treatises  on  science  have  done  much  to  foster, 
is  the  notion  that  men  are  capable  of  appreciating  and 
explaining  the  designs  and  purposes  of  God  in  making 
things  as  they  are.  We  are  constantly  called  upon  by 
lecturers  and  writers  to  admire  the  exquisite  adaptation 
of  this  thing  or  that  thing  to  what  they  imagine  to  be 
its  use  and  object,  to  worship  the  goodness  and  love 
which  made  the  infinite  beauties  and  glories  of  light 
and  music,  of  ocean  and  air,  of  flowers  and  forests,  of 
mountains  and  the  great  heavens,  to  exercise  and  de 
light  the  created  senses  and  mind  of  man,  as  if  this 
were  their  sole  or  chief  function.  But  is  it  not  a  harm 
less  and  even  a  profitable  exercise  of  the  human  facul 
ties,  this  wonderful  study  of  God's  designs  ?  No !  for 
it  leads  men  to  think  that  they  can  enter  into  God's 
thoughts  and  understand  the  scope  of  his  designs.  If 
men  get  into  the  habit  of  thinking  they  can  fathom 
God's  intentions  in  the  gentle  and  kindly  things  of  na 
ture,  when  they  meet  a  terrible  and,  to  human  eyes, 
injurious  exhibition  of  natural  forces,  the  confidence 


36  Popularizing  Science. 

they  have  acquired  in  their  own  judgment  concerning 
the  final  causes  of  things  leads  them  to  say,  This  is 
not  the  work  of  a  benevolent  being  at  all,  for  it  is  a 
cruel  work ;  these  are  a  devil's  doings,  or  the  fruit  of 
man's  sin.  A  shipwreck,  for  example,  must  be  a  "judg 
ment,"  for  was  not  the  ocean  made  expressly  to  be  the 
pathway  for  man's  ships?  Professor  Cooke,  in  his 
Graham  lectures  on  "  Religion  and  Chemistry,"  declares 
that  it  is  not  true  that  the  material  universe  manifests 
a  God  of  unmixed  beneficence,  and  he  bases  this 
frightful  conclusion  on  fact  that  "  lightning  and  tem 
pest,  plague,  pestilence,  and  famine,  with  all  their  aw 
ful  accompaniments,  are  no  less  facts  of  nature  than 
the  golden  sunset,  the  summer's  breeze,  and  the  ripen 
ing  harvest."  The  argument  is  this  :  Man  is  the  ob 
ject  for  which  all  things  are  made;  man  comprehends 
God's  purposes  in  creation  ;  the  glories  of  sunset  were 
made  to  delight  man's  eyes,  the  gentle  breeze  to  fan 
his  cheek,  the  abundant  harvests  to  satisfy  his  hunger ; 
these  things  are  good  for  man ;  they  comfort  and  bless 
him;  God  is  good — but  earthquakes  and  volcanoes, 
storms  and  pestilences,  crush  and  destroy  man ;  man 
is  the  ultimate  object  of  creation;  man  appreciates 
God's  designs,  and  the  design  of  these  terrors  is  cruel ; 
God  is  malevolent.  If  popular  science  had  not  insidi 
ously  taught  people  to  believe  that  they  can  essentially 
comprehend  the  benevolence  of  the  seeming  good  in 
nature,  they  would  not  be  so  -prone  to  think  that  they 
can  decide  upon  the  malevolence  of  the  seeming  evil. 
The  fact  is  that  natural  science  should  have  nothing 


Popularizing  Science.  37 

whatever  to  do  with  the  discussion  concerning  final 
causes.  It  is  the  province  of  science  to  investigate  pa 
tiently  and  record  accurately  the  natural  sequence  of 
events ;  and  there  is  work  enough  to  be  done  in  this 
legitimate  sphere  without  intruding  upon  the  rightful 
province  of  another  philosophy.  It  is  best  to  find  out 
the  real  facts  of  nature  before  we  write  poetry  or  ser 
mons  about  them.  At  least,  it  will  be  well  to  really 
find  out  how  things  are  made  before  we  enter  upon  any 
deep  speculation  as  to  why  they  have  been  so  made. 
How  many  long  chapters  have  been  written  about  the 
mathematical  instinct  of  the  honey-bee,  and  the  won 
derful  precision  with  which  it  builds  perfect  hexagonal 
cells !  But  it  turns  out,  after  all,  that  the  bee  does  not 
build  with  any  precision,  and  that  it  is  constantly  mak 
ing  pentagonal  cells  and  crooked  cells  of  irregular 
shape,  so  that  hardly  a  bit  of  honey-comb  can  be  found 
in  which  many  irregularities  and  much  patchwork  do 
not*  occur.  Indeed,  no  man  ever  saw  a  single  honey- 
cell  in  perfect  form,  in  spite  of  Lord  Brougham's  extra 
ordinary  assertion  in  his  "  Natural  Theology,"  that  the 
mathematical  theory  of  the  cell  and  the  bee's  practice 
are  absolutely  coincident.  And  what  becomes  of  all 
the  poetry  about  the  Argonaut  nautilus  spreading  its 
sails  to  the  favoring  breeze  and  sailing  over  the  summer 
sea,  when  it  appears  that  the  arms  of  the  nautilus  are 
never  used  in  this  manner,  and  that  the  little  creature 
is,  and  always  was,  quite  incapable  of  any  such  exploit? 
The  natural  theologians  have  always  set  great  store  by 
the  chambered  nautilus  on  account  of  its  supposed 


38  Popularizing  Science. 

power  of  condensing  air  in  its  unoccupied  chambers, 
so  that  the  shell  may  be  made  to  sink  like  a  diving- 
bell.  This  condensing  power  was  justly  considered  an 
extraordinary  invention,  a  wonderful  adaptation  of 
means  to  ends.  And  so  perhaps  it  would  be  if  it  were 
real ;  unfortunately  for  the  argument,  it  is  not  a  fact  that 
the  chambered  nautilus  performs  any  such  remarkable 
operation.  Between  a  theologian  dabbling  in  science 
and  a  scientific  man  dabbling  in  theology,  it  is,  indeed, 
hard  to  choose.  Any  one  who  desires  to  see  further  in 
stances  of  this  method  of  studying  nature  may  find 
them  ad  nauseam,  in  such  books  as  "  Homes  without 
Hands,"  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Wood,  and  the  works  of  Mr. 
Leo  H.  Grindon. 

We  scarcely  realized  how  vicious  the  general  method 
of  popularizing  science  has  been  until  we  lately  took 
up  a  collection  of  "Familiar  Lectures  on  Scientific 
Subjects,"  which  is  singularly  free  from  the  common 
cant.  Sir  John  Herschel  has  published  under  the 
above  title  a  collection  of  the  lectures  he  has  delivered 
to  popular  audiences ;  it  contains  lectures  on  "  Volca 
noes  and  Earthquakes,"  the  "  Sun,"  "Comets,"  "Light," 
"  Celestial  Measurings  and  Weighings,"  and  the  "  Origin 
of  Force,"  subjects  which  usually  call  forth  the  best 
eloquence  of  those  who  think  they  can  find  out  the 
Almighty.  Sir  John  Herschel  treats  all  these  great 
subjects  plainly,  worthily,  humbly.  The  inventive  ge 
nius  of  the  Creator  never  receives  laudatory  mention, 
the  kind  intentions  of  the  Disposer  of  All  are  never 
appreciatively  alluded  to,  and  no  surprise  is  ever  ex- 


Popularizing  Science.  39 

pressed  that  God  allows  this  thing  or  that  thing  to 
happen  or  to  exist.  It  is  a  relief  to  find  a  new  famil 
iar  treatise  on  scientific  subjects  which  is  accurate  and 
logical,  and  free  from  the  flippant  semi-religious  senti- 
mentalism  which  mars  so  many  of  the  popular  books 
on  such  subjects.  In  one  essay,  however,  that  on  "The 
Yard,  the  Pendulum,  and  the  Metre,"  we  feel  bound  to 
say  that  Herschel's  English  feeling  gets  altogether  the 
better  of  his  reasoning  faculty. 

In  thus  speaking  of  the  dangers  which  attend  the 
process  of  making  science  familiar,  we  have  no  desire 
to  gainsay  the  necessity  of  diffusing  scientific  informa 
tion  as  widely  as  possible.  But  in  pursuing  this  desir 
able  end,  it  is  of  primary  importance  that  nothing  but 
real  science  should  be  diffused,  and  that  the  methods 
of  teaching  employed  should  be,  before  everything, 
characterized  by  simplicity,  fairness,  and  humility. 


THE  GOOD   OLD   TIMES. 


THE  advent  of  the  new  year  suggested  to  us  the  idea 
of  noting  down  a  few  of  the  material  indications  of  the 
progress  made  by  the  world  since  the  beginning  of  the 
century,  and  we  speedily  made  out  a  list  of  things 
which  are  so  familiar  to  us  that  we  have  not  only  ceased 
to  think  of  them  as  novelties,  but  very  few  of  us  can 
even  fancy  the  world  getting  on  without  them,  though 
our  grandfathers  had  never  heard  of  them.  The  ma 
terial  progress  made  within  the  present  century  is,  to 
be  sure,  a  trite  subject,  but  then  we  doubt  whether,  in 
spite  of  all  that  has  been  said  upon  it,  many  people 
have  sufficient  acquaintance  with  its  details  not  to  be 
startled  by  seeing  them  grouped  together.  A  man 
need  not  be  very  old  to  remember  the  time  when  there 
were  no  railroads,  no  locomotives,  no  steamships,  and 
no  telegraph  wires — no  gaslights,  no  petroleum,  no 
California  gold,  no  india-rubber  shoes  or  coats,  no  per 
cussion  caps  or  revolvers,  no  friction  matches,  no  city 
aqueduct,  no  steam  printing  presses,  no  sewing  ma 
chines,  no  reaping  machines,  no  postage  stamps  or 
envelopes  or  pens  of  steel  or  gold  ;  when  there  was  no 


42  The  Good  Old  Times. 

homoeopathy  or  hydropathy,  no  chloroform  or  teeth  ex 
tracted  without  pain ;  when  there  was  no  mesmerism, 
no  biology,  and  no  table-tippings  and  marvels  from  the 
spiritual  world  ;  no  planet  Neptune,  no  Stuart's  syrup, 
no  Hecker's  flour,  no  temperance  societies,  no  sax 
horns  or  cornets  or  Boehm  flutes  or  seven-octave  pianos ; 
no  photographs,  no  paint-tubes  for  artists,  no  complete 
stenography,  no  lithography  or  anastatic  printing  or 
etching  on  stone,  no  illustrated  news,  and  hardly  a 
decent  wood-engraving;  when  omnibuses  and  street 
cars  were  not  dreamed  of;  when  dull  street  lamps  lit 
with  whale-oil  were  a  luxury,  and  the  Metropolitan  Po 
lice  an  Utopian  vision ;  when  there  was  no  unpopular 
Christianity,  no  Emerson  or  Parker,  no  slavery  agita 
tion,  no  Garrison  or  Phillips ;  Tennyson,  Browning, 
and  Carlyle  were  in  embryo,  and  even  Wordsworth  was 
hardly  known  ;  when  there  were  no  public  schools,  no 
special  departments  of  science  in  colleges,  no  gymna 
siums,  no  art  unions,  no  literary  or  political  clubs,  no 
lyceum  lectures,  no  wisely  organized  and  widely  oper 
ating  philanthrophic  societies,  no  prison  discipline,  no 
good  lunatic  asylums,  no  houses  of  employment  and 
reformation  for  young  scamps — and  generally  very  little 
hope  of  reform  in  young  or  old  scamps. 

In  those  days  people  drank  green  tea,  and  ate  heavy 
suppers,  and  went  to  bed  with  warming  pans  and  night 
caps,  and  slept  on  feather  beds,  with  bed  curtains  round 
them,  and  dreaded  the  fresh  air  in  their  rooms  as  much 
as  sensible  folks  nowadays  dread  to  be  without  it. 
And  if  they  heard  a  noise  in  the  night,  they  got  up  and 


The  Good  Old  Times.  43 

groped  about  in  the  dark,  and  procured  a  light  with 
much  difficulty,  with  flint  and  steel  and  tinder-box, 
and  unpleasant  sulphur  matches,  and  went  to  their 
medicine-chests  and  took  calomel  and  blue  pills,  and 
Peruvian  bark,  and  salts  and  senna,  and  jalap  and 
rhubarb.  In  those  days  the  fine  gentlemen  tippled  old 
Jamaica  and  bitters  in  the  morning,  and  lawyers  took 
their  clients  to  the  sideboard  for  a  dram — while  the 
fine  ladies  lounged  on  sofas,  reading  Byron,  and  Moore, 
and  Scott's  novels.  In  those  days  long  leather  fire- 
buckets  were  hung  in  the  entries,  filled  with  water,  and 
when  a  fire  broke  out  every  citizen  was  a  fireman.  In 
those  days  gentlemen  chewed  tobacco,  indifferent  where 
they  expectorated,  and  ladies  cleaned  their  dental  pearls 
with  snuff,  and  wore  thin  shoes,  and  laced  themselves 
into  feminine  wasps  and  consumption.  Babies  were 
put  to  sleep  with  spanking  and  paregoric.  Urchins 
were  flogged  at  school  a  posteriori,  and  subjected  to  all 
sorts  of  unheard  of  chastisements.  Picture  books  and 
toys  were  dear  and  poor.  Big  boys  played  "  hockey " 
(or,  as  they  called  it  South,  "  bandy ")  in  the  streets, 
with  crooked  sticks  and  hard  wooden  balls  (policemen 
being  unknown),  and  went  home  to  their  mothers  to 
have  broken  shins  anointed  with  opodeldoc.  Street  fights 
occurred  between  schools,  and  schoolmasters  were  per 
secuted  by  the  biggest  boys.  Young  ladies  danced 
nothing  but  formal  and  decorous  cotillions,  or  fast  and 
furious  Virginia  reels,  in  wide  entry  halls,  by  the  light 
of  candles  that  called  for  snuffers  every  ten  minutes — 
to  music  by  black  fiddlers  or  cracked  and  jingling 


44  The  Good  Old  Times. 

pianos ;  while  mothers  sat  darning  stockings,  and  fa 
thers  played  backgammon,  or  gambled,  and  drank 
brandy  and  water — or  came  home  late,  roaring  bac 
chanalian  songs,  and  inquiring  of  their  sleepy  wives  in 
which  brown  paper  parcel  the  milk  was  tied  up. 
Boarding-school  misses  in  calico  gowns  practised  the 
"  Battle  of  Prague,"  or  "  The  Caliph  of  Bagdad,"  or 
dementi's  "  Sonatas  "  on  instruments  not  much  bigger 
than  a  modern  young  lady's  travelling  trunk,  strung 
with  jangling  wires  that  were  always  snapping:  and 
occasionally  chirped  Moore's  "  Melodies,"  or  such 
airs  as  "  Gaily  the  Troubadour,"  or  "  Pray,  papa,  stay 
a  little  longer,"  or  "  The  banks  of  the  blue  Mosche- 
he-he-helle."  Guests  sat  on  hard  wooden  chairs,  some 
times  with  their  feet  up,  over  roaring  wood-fires,  "  spit- 
tin'  round  and  makin'  'emselves  sociable,"  with  juleps, 
egg-nogg,  apples  and  cider.  Every  man  shaved ;  wore 
a  bell-crowned  hat  ;  a  swallow-tail  coat,  with  a  horse- 
collar  ;  carried  a  turnip-shaped  timekeeper  in  his  waist 
band,  with  a  heavy  seal  hanging  out ;  had  his  breeches 
pockets  full  of  silver  half  dollars;  wore  round-toed 
boots  and  linen  shirts  ;  cased  his  throat  in  a  high  black 
satin  neck-stock  or  heavy  cravat,  with  high  standing 
shirt  collars ;  ate  all  manner  of  indigestible  food; 
swallowed  all  manner  of  nauseous  quack  medicines; 
dined  at  one  o'clock,  some  families  eating  the  pudding 
before  the  meat;  took  naps  in  the  afternoon  (on  Sun 
days  preferring  the  pews  for  that  purpose) ;  had  noth 
ing  to  say  against  slavery  or  rum ;  took  a  meagre 
weekly  newspaper;  smoked  "long  nines;"  ate  fried 


The  Good  Old  Times.  45 

oysters,  and  lobster  salad,  and  Welsh  rarebit  with 
plenty  of  red  pepper,  and  drank  fiery  Madeira  or 
punch,  at  twelve  o'clock  at  night ;  got  his  feet  wet  on 
slushy,  snowy  days;  took  awful  colds  and  rheuma 
tisms  ;  sent  for  Dr.  Sangsue,  and  was  bled,  blistered, 
and  leeched;  had  nightmares,  headaches,  dyspepsia, 
fever,  delirium,  death  and  darkened  rooms.  In  those 
days  a  journey  from  New  York  to  Albany  took  as  much 
time  and  thought  as  a  voyage  now  to  Panama ;  and  a 
voyage  to  Europe  was  like  a  departure  to  the  next 
world.  We  saw  our  friends  aboard  ship  with  sobs  and 
tears,  and  a  letter  from  across  the  ocean  was  like  an 
angel's  visit. 

Such  are  a  few  of  the  reminiscences  of  fifty,  nay, 
forty,  years  ago.  No  doubt  our  horizon  has  expanded 
in  a  vast  number  of  directions  since  then.  But,  per 
contra,  have  we  not  lost  as  well  as  gained  ?  If  we  are 
better  provided  with  ways  and  means  for  material  com 
fort,  have  we  gained  also  in  self-reliant  and  industrious 
and  simple  habits?  If  we  are  all  more  on  a  level, 
are  we  as  courteous  ?  If  riches  abound  more,  do 
not  luxury  and  extravagance  threaten  us  proportion 
ally  ?  If  we  have  grown  more  intelligent,  have  we 
grown  wiser?  If  humane  and  philanthropic  associa 
tions  overspread  the  country,  are  we  individually  less 
selfish  ?  But  we  are  not  going  to  preach. 


WHY  WE  HAVE  NO  SATURDAY  REVIEWS." 


MR.  RICHARD  GRANT  WHITE  discussed  this  ques 
tion  in  a  recent  number  of  the  "  Galaxy,"  but  failed, 
we  think,  to  give  it  a  complete  or  satisfactory  answer. 
He  has,  doubtless,  hit  on  some  of  the  reasons  which 
have  prevented  the  appearance  in  this  country  ere  now 
of  a  periodical  of  the  character  and  pretensions  of  the 
Saturday  Review ;  but  he  has  left  the  principal  one, 
in  our  opinion,  unnoticed.  It  is  quite  true,  for  instance, 
that  serious  obstacles  to  the  success  of  any  such  pub 
lication  are  offered  by  the  wideness  of  the  area  over 
which  persons  of  cultivation  are  scattered,  the  absence 
of  a  literary  metropolis,  and  the  insatiable  demands 
made  on  the  time  and  thoughts  of  all  men  of  ability  by 
law,  politics,  and  commerce.  The  small  price  paid  by 
publishers  for  contributions,  which  he  also  mentions, 
we  think  of  very  little  importance.  If  publishers  do 
not  pay  enough  for  articles,  it  is  because  it  does  not 
pay  them  to  pay  more.  They  are  but  retailers,  and 
they  give  the  manufacturers  simply  what  the  demand 
on  the  part  of  their  customers  justifies  them  in  giving. 


48         "  Why  we  have  no  Saturday  Reviews" 

We  think  we  can  throw  a  little  more  light  on  this 
momentous  theme — for  momentous  it  is,  if  we  are  to 
judge  from  the  amount  of  talk  there  has  been  expended 
on  it  by  that  very  small  class  who  have  ever  seen  the 
Saturday  Review  or  know  what  it  is.  We  shall  com 
mence  by  stating  that,  in  our  opinion,  the  grand  and  in 
itself  sufficient  reason  why  the  American  public  has  not 
had  a  Saturday  Review  before  now  is  that  it  has  not 
wanted  one.  Those  who  have  done  most  of  the  lament 
ing  over  the  absence  of  a  weekly  paper  of  this  descrip 
tion  have  always  taken  for  granted  that  there  existed 
a  demand  for  it  on  the  part  of  the  public  :  this  we  pro 
nounce  to  be  a  baseless  assumption.  Mr.  White  asserts 
that  this  demand  has  existed  and  does  exist,  but  the 
native  manufacturers  have  not  been  able  to  supply  it, 
and  consequently  readers  have  betaken  themselves  to 
the  English  article,  and  he  mentions  that  the  call  "at 
all  the  intellectual  centres  of  the  country  for  the  first- 
rate  weekly  papers  of  London — the  Saturday  Review, 
the  Spectator,  Athenteum,  etc. — is  so  large  that  one  firm 
lives  chiefly  by  importing  these  papers  to  supply  that 
demand."  How  a  man  of  Mr.  White's  knowledge  of 
the  literary  taste  of  the  community  ever  got  such  a 
notion  as  this  into  his  head  it  is  difficult  to  see.  We 
have  always  held,  when  listening  to  the  prevalent 
groanings  for  a  Saturday  Review  or  Spectator,  that,  if 
either  of  these  papers  was  published  in  the  United 
States,  it  would  not  circulate  one  thousand  copies.  As 
it  is,  in  spite  of  the  craving  for  them  at  "  the  intellectual 
centres,"  the  firm  which  Mr.  White  supposes  to  "  live 


"  Why  we  have  no  Saturday  Reviews"        49 

chiefly  by  importing  them,"  imports  less  than  two  hun 
dred  Saturday  Reviews,  and  less  than  one  hundred 
Spectators,  although  it  supplies  Boston ;  and,  in  fact,  it 
may  be  safely  said  that  the  total  circulation  of  the 
Saturday  Review  and  Spectator  together  in  the  whole 
United  States  does  not  reach  five  hundred  copies.  Mr. 
White  talks  of  this  as  a  "  large  and  increasing  demand  " 
for  the  imported  article,  and  ascribes  it,  in  part  at  least, 
to  "  the  failure  of  the  native  production."  But  the 
demand  is  not  large — it  is  very  small ;  and  it  is  not  in 
creasing.  If  we  subtracted  from  the  two  hundred 
copies  of  the  Saturday  Review  the  number  taken  by 
expatriated  Britons  and  news  rooms,  we  should  prob 
ably  find  that  such  was  the  dissatisfaction  of  the  Amer 
ican  public  with  "the  native  product"  that  it  had 
furiously  ordered  about  eighty  copies  of  the  first-class 
English  weeklies  to  supply  the  intellectual  needs  of  a 
population  of  20,000,000.  We,  for  our  part,  are  firmly 
convinced  that  when  the  American  public,  or  any  other 
public,  can  bring  into  the  market  what  political  econo 
mists  call  "  an  effective  demand  "  for  first-class  period 
icals,  it  will  get  them.  That  it  has  not  wanted  first- 
class  foreign  weeklies,  we  conclude,  from  the  fact  that, 
although  such  papers  have  been  in  existence  for  twenty 
or  thirty  years,  it  has  not  bought  them,  and  does  not 
buy  them. 

The  shortcomings  of  authors  and  publishers  on 
which  Mr.  White  comments  have,  we  think,  very  little  to 
do  with  the  matter.  The  circulation  of  the  Saturday 
Revieiv  or  Spectator,  even  in  England,  would  here  be 


50         "  Why  we  have  no  Saturday  Reviews." 

considered  very  small.  It  is  very  small,  and  we  ques 
tion  very  much  whether  either  of  these  papers  derives 
any  profit  worth  speaking  of  from  its  sales.  It  is  the 
advertisements  that  keep  them  afloat  and  enrich  the 
proprietors ;  and  the  income  of  the  Saturday  Review 
from  this  source  is  very  large,  although  most  of  its 
advertisements  are  crowded  into  pages  which  readers 
never  cut.  It  is,  nevertheless,  able  to  ask  for  them 
almost  any  price  it  pleases,  and  finds  it  cheerfully  paid. 
If  a  journal  of  similar  circulation  here  were  to  ask  for 
advertisements  at  such  rates,  it  would  either  be  laughed 
at  or  have  to  receive  them  as  a  great  favor,  probably 
accompanied  by  a  request  for .  a  supplementary  puff  in 
the  editorial  columns,  such  as  religious  weeklies  accord 
to  good  customers.  The  reason  of  this  is  not  far  to 
seek.  In  aristocratic  countries,  traders  of  all  kinds 
rely  rather  on  few  sales  at  high  prices  than  on  large 
sales  at  low  prices.  They  therefore  address  their  ad 
vertisements  to  a  small  wealthy  class,  and  in  select 
ing  the  paper  in  which  they  put  them  they  consider 
rather  the  social  position  and  tastes  of  its  readers  than 
their  number — that  is  to  say,  their  quality  rather  than 
their  quantity.  In  England  the  wealthy  class  is  the 
cultivated  class.  In  other  words,  the  first-class  week 
lies  are  more  read  by  the  great  buyers  of  books, 
jewelry,  clothes,  and  all  luxuries  than  any  other  paper 
except  the  Times.  The  Star,  or  Daily  Telegraph,  has 
probably  six  times  the  circulation  of  the  Saturday 
Review  ;  but  it  probably  does  not  receive  one-tenth  as 
much  for  its  advertisements.  Here,  the  converse  of 


"  Why  we  have  no  Saturday  Reviews"         51 

this  rule  prevails.  All  advertising  is  paid  for  in  strict 
proportion  to  the  number  of  eyes  the  paper  reaches,  no 
matter  what  may  be  the  position  of  those  to  whom  the 
eyes  belong.  How  hardly  this  bears  on  papers  which 
address  themselves  mainly  or  solely  to  the  cultivated 
class,  all  the  more  as  the  cultivated  class  in  America 
is  by  no  means  the  wealthiest  class  of  the  community, 
we  need  not  point  out.  Our  large  fortunes  are  too 
frequently  in  the  hands  of  men  whose  reading,  from 
their  youth  up,  has  rarely  carried  them  beyond  the 
daily  papers. 

There  is,  of  course,  greater  difficulty  in  securing  good 
writing,  such  as  the  first-class  weeklies  call  for,  here 
than  in  England,  and  for  various  reasons,  which  we 
have  only  time  to  glance  at.  The  English  universities 
turn  out  every  year  as  fair  a  proportion  of  dunces  and 
blockheads  as  any  institutions  of  their  size  in  the  world. 
But  they  also  turn  out  a  great  number  of  young  men  of 
remarkable  maturity  of  mind  as  well  as  cultivation — a 
much  greater  number  than  American  colleges.  These 
young  men  mostly  go  into  the  church  or  to  the  bar ;  in 
either  case  they  have,  during  the  best  years  of  their  life, 
a  superabundance  of  leisure.  A  man  is  very  success 
ful  at  the  English  bar  who  begins  to  creep  into  practice 
at  forty.  An  American  lawyer  is  by  that  time  near 
being  a  grandfather  and  beginning  to  be  worn  out  with 
work  and  to  occupy  himself  with  the  investment  of  a 
snug  fortune.  The  Englishman  passes  the  golden  fif 
teen  years  of  his  prime  in  waiting,  hoping,  dining  out, 
and  talking.  He  is  surrounded  by  a  very  complex  so- 


52         "  Why  we  have  no  Saturday  Reviews" 

ciety,  composed  of  several  classes,  differing  in  habits, 
manners,  and  tone  of  thought,  and  he  lives  amongst 
people  who  go  into  company  as  a  pursuit,  and  are  con 
stantly  occupied  with  the  consideration  of  their  relations 
to  other  people  of  the  same  set,  and  of  the  various 
means  by  which  "  social  position  "  is  won,  or  kept,  or 
lost.  The  result  is  that  he  can  hardly  help  speculating 
constantly  on  social  phenomena,  trifling  often,  but 
generally  interesting,  and  produces  the  "  social  articles  " 
which  constitute  so  much  of  the  attraction  of  the  Spec 
tator  and  Saturday  Review,  and  for  which  we  sigh  so 
often,  and  sigh  in  vain,  in  our  own  papers.  The  social 
experience  even  of  our  middle-aged  men  is  very  small, 
and  our  society  has  been  hitherto  too  monotonous  in  its 
coloring  to  furnish  food  for  anything  but  very  general 
reflection. 

The  charge  which  Mr.  White  dwells  on  a  good  deal, 
that  American  authors  do  not  write  well  for  American 
periodicals  because  they  are  not  paid  enough,  we  think 
has  far  more  sound  than  substance.  Writers  are  not 
well  enough  paid ;  but  the  fault  is  not  with  the  publish 
ers,  but  the  public,  as  we  have  said  already.  We  can 
not  agree  with  Mr.  White  that  writers  of  articles  for 
periodicals  should  be  paid  at  the  same  rate  as  men 
bringing  the  same  amount  of  time  or  ability  to  the 
practice  of  the  law.  The  practice  of  the  law  requires 
special  training ;  the  practice  of  literature  needs  only 
such  training  as  any  man  may  get  incidentally  in  the 
course  of  a  general  education.  A  lawyer,  too,  is  not 
paid  simply  for  his  time  or  for  the  use  of  his  brain. 


"  Why  we  have  no  Saturday  Reviews."         53 

He  is  paid  for  his  character,  his  experience,  and  for 
incurring  tremendous  responsibility,  such  as  no  literary 
man  knows  anything  about.  Bad  writing  is,  no  doubt, 
an  offence  against  society,  which  every  man  should 
avoid  committing  if  his  circumstances  and  his  educa 
tion  will  permit  him  ;  but  it  cannot  be  compared  to  the 
offence  of  betraying  a  client  or  mismanaging  his  busi 
ness  through  negligence  or  ignorance  or  incapacity. 
Writers — even  the  best  writers — are  not  paid  in  Eng 
land  at  the  same  rate  as  lawyers.  Thackeray  never 
received  nearly  as  much  money  in  his  most  successful 
year  as  Bethell,  or  Thesiger,  or  Cairns  received  year 
after  year  as  his  regular  income,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
official  honors,  which  are  in  England  part,  and  a  large 
part,  of  a  successful  lawyer's  reward. 

The  real  reason,  as  we  believe — or,  at  least,  the  great 
reason — why  we  have  not  hitherto  had  journals  of  the 
literary  standing  of  the  first  class  English  weeklies,  has 
been  much  the  same  as  the  reason  why  we  have  not 
until  very  recently  had  any  poets  or  historians  or  essay 
ists  or  scientific  men  to  compare  to  those  of  European 
countries.  It  was  neither  the  small  pay,  nor  the  size  of 
the  republic,  nor  the  absence  of  a  literary  metropolis 
that  deprived  us  of  them,  but  the  fact  that  the  Revolu 
tion  left  this  country  in  a  colonial  condition,  intellec 
tually  as  well  as  in  other  ways,  out  of  which  it  has  ever 
since  been  working,  although  traces  of  it  are  still  to  be 
found.  But  we  are  making  pretty  rapid  progress,  and 
we  predict  that  Mr.  White  will  live  to  see  the  day,  not 
when,  as  some  wiseacres  expect,  America  will  have  a 


54         "  Why  we  have  no  Saturday  Reviews" 

new  and  peculiar  literature  of  its  own,  and  even  an  as 
tronomy  and  pure  mathematics  of  its  own,  but  when  it 
will  contribute  its  full  share — and  that,  too,  a  very  im 
portant  share — to  the  literary  and  scientific  stock  of 
the  civilized  world. 


TINKERING   HYMNS. 


THE  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  has  taken,  or  is 
about  to  take,  a  step  which  the  world  religious  and  the 
world  literary  pronounce  "a  crime  against  letters." 
At  the  last  General  Convention  of  the  Church,  "hymn- 
ody "  was  a  subject  of  some  consideration  and  much 
discussion,  and  eventually  received  the  usual  American 
panacea  of  being  referred  to  a  committee.  This  com 
mittee  has  produced  a  small  volume  of  sixty-five  "  Ad 
ditional  Hymns,"  which,  "  by  direction  of  the  House 
of  Bishops,  are  published  under  the  supervision  of  the 
joint  committee,"  and  are  licensed  for  use.  The 
hymns  are  strictly  "  additional,"  for  the  Prayer  Book 
ends  with  hymn  212,  and  this  volume  begins  with  hymn 
number  213. 

The  work  which  the  General  Convention  intended 
to  assign  to  its  committee,  we  undertake  to  say,  was 
that  of  selecting.  The  committee,  however,  seems  to 
have  misread  its  authority  into  something  like  the  fol 
lowing  : — 

Resolved,  That  a  joint  committee  of  clerical  and  lay 
deputies  be  appointed  to  select  and  tinker  hymns  to 
be  used  in  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church. 


56  Tinkering  Hymns. 

If  the  committee  had  acted  under  such  a  resolution 
we  should  say  that  its  members  had  performed  their 
work  well,  except,  perhaps,  that  the  work  of  tinkering 
too  much  exceeded  the  work  of  selecting. 

Is  it  really  impossible  for  a  church  to  add  to  its 
hymnal  hymns  as  their  authors  wrote  them  ?  Can  we 
not  have  a  collection  of  lyrics  which  to  the  element  of 
religion  shall  add  the  element  of  authenticity  ?  Will  it 
always  be  impossible  for  a  few  conscientious  and  intel 
ligent  gentlemen  to  sit  down  to  this  easy  and  pleasant 
task  without  immediately  becoming  affected  with  this 
horrible  mania?  Did  not  the  late  Dr.  Bethune  once 
stop  in  the  reading  of  a  hymn  and  exclaim  to  his  startled 
choir ;  "  This  hymn  is  not  as  Cowper  wrote  it !  Who 
has  dared  to  alter  a  hymn  of  Cowper's  ?  Sing  it  thus, 
and  not  so"  Does  not  a  recent  number  of  the  " Con 
temporary  Review"  ridicule  and  revile  the  English 
collections  which  are  labelled  "  Improved  Versions  ? " 
Has  not  one  of  the  eminent  members  of  the  bar  of 
England,  Sir  Roundell  Palmer,  published  his  "Book 
of  Praise "  for  the  sake  of  restoring  degraded  hymns 
to  their  original  purity  ?  Do  not  the  taste  of  the  world 
religious  and  the  conscience  of  the  world  secular  cry 
out  against  all  spurious  emendations  of  an  author's 
text  ?  Year  by  year  we  travel  back  to  past  authors ; 
we  republish  them  with  their  antique  inaccuracies  of 
spelling ;  we  reproduce  them  in  the  quaint  garb  of 
their  old  English  type ;  we  condemn  the  editions  that 
have  tampered  with  the  text,  and  cling  to  the  origi 
nal  thoughts  moulded  in  the  original  form.  Who  but 


Tinkering  Hymns.  57 

a  madman  would  rush  against  such  settled  public  sen 
timent  ? 

The  book  before  us  is  a  small  volume,  but  a  great 
innovation.  We  respect  the  boldness  of  the  committee 
in  bringing  forward  hymns  which,  a  quarter  of  a  cen 
tury  ago,  were  exclusively  the  property  of  the  Metho 
dist  or  the  Romanist.  "  Brown,  of  Ossawatomie,"  stands 
at  the  first  page.  Every  one  in  this  nation  knows  that 
"  Blow  ye  the  trumpet,  blow,"  was  John  Brown's  favorite 
hymn,  sung  on  his  scaffold  and  at  his  burial ;  and  little 
thought  the  world  six  years  ago,  when  the  old  abolition 
ist's  death  gave  to  the  rude  lyric  a  wide  repute,  that  an 
Episcopal  convention  would  ever  transplant  it  from  the 
field  of  the  camp  meeting  to  the  guarded  pages  of  the 
revered  and  ever  to  be  reverenced  Book  of  Common 
Prayer.  Yet  it  is  there,  and  it  is  first. 

An  index  is  not  much  of  a  literary  work,  and,  ordi 
narily,  a  reader  abuses  a  book  for  not  having  one,  or 
abuses  the  index  for  not  having  all  the  contents.  Here 
he  may  go  a  little  further,  and  say  that  even  an  index 
can  be  made  an  instrument  of  error  and  injustice. 
The  compilers  have  appended  to  this  index  the  names 
of  the  authors.  They  were  not  obliged  to  supply  such 
a  list ;  but,  if  they  undertook  to  do  so,  they  were 
bound  to  furnish  one  trustworthy  and  consistent.  Yet 
this  humble  part  of  their  work  seems  to  have  been 
thrown  together  in  mere  caprice,  and  to  follow  no  con 
sistent  or  intelligible  rule.  The  hymn,  "Oh,  sacred 
Head  now  wounded,"  is  from  the  German  of  Paul 
Gerhardt,  which  is  from  the  "Salve  caput  cruentatum" 
3* 


58  Tinkering  Hymns. 

of  St.  Bernard ;  the  index  ignores  the  translator,  and 
calls  the  hymn  Gerhardt's.  The  hymn  "  Creator 
Spirit,"  is  from  the  Latin  "  Veni  Creator  Spiritus  ; "  the 
index  ignores  the  original,  and  calls  the  hymn  Dryden's. 
"  For  thee,  oh !  dear,  dear  country,"  is  by  Dr.  Neale, 
from  the  "  Hora  Novissima  "  of  Bernard  of  Cluni ;  the 
index  ignores  both  translator  and  author,  and  calls  this 
recent  production  "  Ancient."  "  Jesus,  the  very  thought 
of  Thee,"  is  credited  to  St.  Bernard,  though  St.  Ber 
nard  was  the  contemporary  of  the  Monk  of  Cluni. 
"  Jerusalem,  my  happy  home,"  is  called  "  Unknown" — 
a  needless  ignorance,  since  Mr.  Prime's  beautiful  little 
history  of  "  Oh  !  Mother  Dear  Jerusalem."  "Jerusalem 
the  Golden  "  is  left  blank,  though  the  work  from  which 
the  hymn  was  copied  names  both  the  author  of  the 
translation  and  the  author  of  the  original.  One  of 
Dr.  Neale's  unequalled  and  original  translations  is 
called  "  Ancient,"  while  three  others  are  not  named  in 
any  way.  Of  what  value  is  such  a  list  of  authors  ? 

There  is  one  hymn  with  regard  to  which  these  extra 
ordinary  freaks  of  the  index  require  particular  inquiry. 
"  My  faith  looks  up  to  Thee  "  is  neither  credited  to  its 
author,  Dr.  Ray  Palmer,  nor  to  any  one  else,  nor  yet 
marked  as  "anonymous"  or  "unknown."  It  is  about 
twenty  years  since  the  hymn  was  written.  With  the 
exception  of  Bishop  Doane's  "  Softly  now  the  light  of 
day,"  we  should  say  that  it  is  more  generally  known 
and  more  highly  prized  than  any  other  recent  Ameri 
can  hymn.  Properly  regarded,  it  is  less  a  hymn  than 
a  prayer — a  prayer  deep,  earnest,  simple,  pleading 


Tinkering  Hymns.  59 

with  beautiful  and  touching  pathos.  The  first  stanza 
is  a  supplication  for  hearing,  the  second  for  grace,  the 
third  for  guidance,  and  the  fourth  for  the  hour  "when 
ends  life's  transient  dream."  In  one  thing  only  is  it 
defective  ;  it  intercedes  for  the  day  of  tribulation,  but 
omits  the  wiser  and  rarer  petition  of  the  Litany,  "  In 
all  times  of  our  prosperity."  Yet  this  hymn,  so  beau 
tiful,  so  brief,  so  peculiar,  is  abbreviated,  and  abbrevi 
ated  by  the  omission  of  the  concluding  stanza.  To 
shorten  a  long  hymn  may  be  necessary,  and  to  cut 
short  one  of  four  stanzas  may  be  excusable ;  but  to 
break  such  a  hymn  as  this  in  pieces,  and  to  leave  the 
suppliant  asking  only  for  the  comforts  of  earth,  striking 
out  his  cry  for  final  mercy,  is,  of  a  certainty,  a  strange 
improvement.  Yet  of  the  hymn  enough  remains  to  be 
credited  to  its  author.  When  a  compiler  takes  a  work 
without  paying  for  it,  the  least  he*  can  do  is  to  ac 
knowledge  briefly  that  the  author  wrote  it.  With  an 
unknown  work  and  an  unknown  author,  such  an 
omission  would  be  of  little  consequence,  but  not  so 
when  the  blank  authorship  relates  to  one  of  the  valu 
able  pieces  of  the  collection. 

But  of  the  alterations  chiefly  to  be  censured  we  have 
not  yet  spoken.  There  is  a  small  volume,  published  by 
Randolph,  called  "The  Seven  Great  Hymns  of  the 
Mediaeval  Church,"  which,  whatever  its  merits  or  de 
fects,  adheres  with  scrupulous  fidelity  to  the  text  of  the 
authors,  even  to  the  extent  of  noting  a  change  in  the 
punctuation.  From  this  small  store  of  mediaeval  wealth 
the  compilers  have  taken  no  less  than  six  of  their 


60  Tinkering  Hymns. 

sixty-five  hymns  ;  and  (so  great  was  their  zeal)  not 
one  of  these  six  hymns  have  they  given  as  the  author 
wrote  it. 

First  of  the  list  stands  the  renowned  "  Dies  Irae." 
It  may  startle  some  people  to  learn  that  the  "  Great 
Hymn,"  the  famous  sequence  of  the  Romish  burial 
service,  has  its  eighteen  stanzas  spread  out  to  their 
fullest  extent  in  this  brief  addition  to  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Prayer-Book. 

Yet  we  do  not  object  to  this;  for,  although  the 
"  Dies  Irae "  will  not  be  used  by  congregations  as  a 
hymn,  still  there  will  be  great  occasions  in  great 
churches  when  ambitious  choirs  will  display  their  tal 
ents  on  it,  and  when  the  people  below  will  need  a  copy 
of  the  hymn  as  a  "  libretto."  But  when  such  a  hymn 
as  this  is  to  be  inserted  in  a  book  which  will  bring  it 
to  the  homes  of  thousands,  who  will  see  no  other  trans 
lation,  then  the  very  best,  if  possible  the  standard 
version  alone,  should  be  employed.  The  Catholics 
have  shown  good  sense  and  good  taste  by  selecting  for 
the  "  St.  Vincent  Manual "  the  translation  of  the  Prot 
estant  Roscommon.  Our  compilers  had  three  versions 
from  which  to  choose.  They  might  have  taken  that  of 
Gen.  Dix,  which  would  have  been  gratifying  to  the 
loyal  members  of  the  Church  and  a  graceful  compli 
ment  to  so  distinguished  a  lay  member,  and  would  have 
secured  also  the  Church  the  best  metrical  translation 
of  the  "  Dies  Irae."  Or  they  might  have  taken  the 
British  version  of  Dr.  Irons,  which  would  have  had  the 
advantage  of  conforming  the  words  of  the  Prayer-Book 


Tinkering  Hymns.  61 

to  the  words  and  music  of  the  "  Hymnal  Noted."  Or 
they  might  have  taken  the  old,  established,  and  ever  to 
be  admired  translation  of  Roscommon.  What  have 
the  compilers  given  to  the  Church?  Their  version 
opens  with  three  false  English  rhymes  : 

"  Day  of  wrath  !  that  day  of  mourning, 
See  fulfilled  the  prophet's  warning, 
Heaven  and  earth  in  ashes  burning." 

Examining  it  further,  we  find  that  the  body  of  the 
hymn  is  the  version  of  Dr.  Irons,  but  altered,  patched, 
and  mutilated.  Some  of  these  changes  are  bad  and 
all  are  needless.  The  only  alteration  which  is  justifi 
able  is  the  change  of  the  Latin  "  Jesu  "  to  its  English 
form.  Corrections  are  often  worse  than  the  faults  they 
seek  to  remove,  and  the  amount  of  the  injury  can  never 
be  measured  by  the  amount  of  the  alteration.  In  the 
third  stanza  the  compilers  have  but  a  part  of  the  last 
line;  in  the  fifth  they  change  but  a  single  word.  Yet 
the  latter  is  worse  than  the  former.  This  alteration 
furnishes  an  instance  of  the  madness  of  tinkering. 
The  stanza  in  the  original  refers  to  the  last  judgment, 
and  the  translation  of  Dr.  Irons  correctly  expresses 
that  idea.  Upon  the  day  of  judgment  is  to  be  brought 
the  book  of  judgment,  and  from  its  record  judgment  is 
to  be  awarded.  The  compilers  change  "judgment"  to 
"justice  "  and  make  nonsense  of  the  verse. 

The  thirteenth  stanza  is  not  by  Dr.  Irons,  but  has 
been  taken  from  the  version  of  Gen.  Dix.  Yet,  even 
when  interpolating  a  solitary  stanza  from  another  au 
thor,  the  mania  for  tinkering  could  not  be  resisted. 


62  Tinkering  Hymns. 

We  quote  it  to  illustrate  the  needlessness  and  bad  taste 
of  the  alterations  : 

GEN.   DIX. 

"  Thou  to  Mary  gav'st  remission, 
Heard'st  the  dying  thief's  petition, 
Bad'st  me  hope  in  my  contrition." 

THE   HASH. 

"  Thou  the  harlot  gav'st  remission, 
Heard'st  the  dying  thief's  petition  ; 
Hopeless  else  were  my  condition." 

The  word  which  is  substituted  in  the  first  line  is  not 
in  the  original,  and  is  not  in  the  Bible ;  it  is  needless, 
coarse  and  repulsive ;  it  does  not  contain  a  new  idea, 
but  repeats  the  old  idea  in  a  low  form.  There  are 
people  who  seem  to  suppose  that  such  words  can  be 
used  with  impunity,  so  long  as  it  is  religious  composi 
tion  into  which  they  are  stuffed.  It  is  time  that  this 
supposition  be  extinguished,  and  people  taught  that 
low  and  vulgar  words  needlessly  used  remain  coarse  and 
vulgar  wherever  placed  or  by  whomsoever  spoken. 

What,  then,  is  the  version  of  the  great  "  Dies  I  roe  " 
which  the  joint  committee  has  placed  in  the  hymnal  of 
the  Episcopal  Church,  to  stand  forever  in  her  book  of 
prayer,  and  to  be  said  and  sung  daily  and  hourly  by 
her  children  ?  It  may  be  analyzed  thus :  Six  stanzas 
are  from  the  version  of  Dr.  Irons,  tinkered ;  the  thir 
teenth  is  by  General  Dix,  also  tinkered ;  while  the 
three  false  rhymes  of  the  first  are  original  with  the 
joint  committee. 

When  a  great  name  is  attached  to  a  hymn  the  or 
dinary  supposition  is  that  the  hymn  was  written  by  the 


Tinkering  Hymns.  63 

owner  of  the  name.  This  supposition  is  almost  ground 
less  when  applied  to  the  "  Additional  Hymns."  For 
when  the  members  of  the  joint  committee  have  exer 
cised  the  extraordinary  self-denial  of  not  tinkering  an 
author's  lines,  they  still  have  been  unable  to  resist  the 
temptation  of  transposing,  inverting,  and  rearranging 
them.  The  mediaeval  hymns  are  not  classical  Latin, 
but  many  of  their  translations  are  classical  English. 
One  would  think  that  the  most  ruthless  committee 
would  at  least  spare  Dryden  and  Dr.  Neale.  Let  us 
see  what  our  committee  has  done. 

"The  Seven  Great  Hymns"  contains  the  "Veni 
Creator "  (ascribed  by  some  to  Charlemagne,  by  others 
to  Gregory  the  Great)  and  also  the  "  paraphrase  "  of 
Dryden.  The  compilers  take  several  parts  of  the  trans 
lation,  make  no  mention  of  the  venerable  original,  and 
call  the  hymn  Dryden's.  It  is  true  that  the  words  are 
Dryden's.  It  is  even  true  that  the  lines  are  Dryden's ; 
but  these  lines  of  Dryden's  are  thrown  together  in  this 
wise  :  the  first  four  form  the  first  stanza  of  the  hymn ; 
the  ninth,  tenth,  eleventh,  and  twelfth  form  the  second 
stanza;  then  the  seventh,  eighth,  fifth,  and  sixth  turn  a 
summersault  over  each  other  and  turn  up  as  the  third 
stanza !  And  these  literary  gymnastics  are  called 
Dryden's ! 

The  celebrated  "  Alleluiatic  Sequence  "  of  Godescal- 
cus  is  translated  by  Dr.  Neale  in  one  of  the  most  me 
lodious  and  finished-  translations  ever  made  of  any 
poem.  "And,"  says  its  author,  "every  sentence,  I 
almost  said  every  word,  of  the  version  was  carefully 


64  Tinkering  Hymns. 


fitted  to  the  music,  and  the  length  of  the  lines  corre 
sponds  to  the  length  of  each  troparion  in  the  original." 
Yet  this  could  not  be  spared.  Dr.  Neale  writes  : 

"  To  the  glory  of  their  King 
Shall  the  ransomed  people  sing." 

The  compilers  hunt  out  the  insignificant  little  word 
"to,"  and  substitute  "for."  Dr.  Neale  writes  : 

"  They  through  the  fields  of  Paradise  that  roam, 
The  blessed  ones,  repeat  through  that  bright  home,  Al 
leluia." 

The  compilers  re-write : 

"  They  in  the  rest  of  Paradise  who  dwell, 
The  blessed  ones,  with  joy  the  chorus  swell,  Alleluia." 

The  poem  contains  the  following  beautiful  passage : 

"  Ye  clouds  that  onward  sweep  ! 
Ye  winds  on  pinions  light ! 
Ye  thunders  echoing  loud  and  deep  ! 
Ye  lightnings  wildly  bright ! 
In  sweet  consent  unite  your  Alleluia." 

The  compilers  (we  are  not  jesting)  actually  have  trans 
posed  these  alternate  rhymes  !  Dr.  Johnson  said  that 
Gray  should  have  omitted  the  expletives  from  the 
"Elegy."  If  the  joint  committee  had  manufactured  a 
hymn  out  of  it,  they  doubtless  would  have  combined 
this  idea  with  their  own,  and  then  we  should  have  had : 

"  The  curfew  tolls  the  knell  of  day, 
The  ploughman  homeward  plods  his  way, 
The  herds  wind  slowly  o'er  the  lea, 
And  leave  the  world  to  you  and  me." 

This  is  ridiculous :  but  there  is  one  hymn  in  the  col 
lection  which,  to  many  readers,  will  appear  little  less 
than  sacrilegious.  "The  Celestial  Country"  of  Dr. 


Tinkering  Hymns.  65 

Neale,  from  the  Latin  of  the  Monk  of  Cluni,  is  among 
the  spiritually  lovely  poems  of  the  language,  and  has 
taken  such  a  strong  hold  upon  religious  minds  as  few 
works  in  prose  or  poetry  have  ever  done.  When  a 
reader  stumbles  upon  a  hymn  taken  from  the  refresh 
ing  poem  which  he  loves,  he  brightens  at  the  discovery 
and  congratulates  himself  that  his  favorite  is  to  become 
known  in  part  to  others.  But  when  he  reads  a  little 
further  and  finds  that  it  is  not  a  quotation ;  that  neither 
language  nor  thought  nor  sentiment  has  been  retained ; 
that  the  lines  which  have  been  read  in  sickness  and  in 
sorrow  have  been  fished  out  and  jumbled  together  as 
children  "cap  verses,"  then  something  rises  up  within 
him  to  prevent  his  ever  forgiving  or  accepting  the  bar 
barism.  Of  such  a  character  is  the  hymn  beginning 
"For  thee,  oh  dear,  dear  country;"  and  bad  as  the 
other  mutilations  are,  those  of  this  hymn  exceed  belief. 
In  "  The  Celestial  Country  "  are  two  passages  which, 
in  their  proper  place,  are  so  spiritual,  so  exquisitely 
beautiful,  that  no  reader  ever  passed  them  unnoticed. 
To  illustrate  this  we  quote  the  two  stanzas  precisely  as 
they  are  printed  in  the  "  Seven  Great  Hymns  : " 

" '  JESUS  the  Gem  of  Beauty, 

True  GOD  and  Man]  they  sing, 
The  never-failing  Garden, 

The  ever-golden  Ring; 
The  Door,  the  Pledge,  the  Husband, 

The  Guardian  of  his  Court, 
The  Day-star  of  salvation, 

The  Porter  and  the  Port !  " 

"  THOU  HAST  NO  SHORE,  FAIR  OCEAN  ! 
THOU  HAST  NO  TIME,  BRIGHT  DAY  ! 


66  Tinkering  Hymns. 

DEAR  FOUNTAIN  OF  REFRESHMENT 

TO  PILGRIMS  FAR  AWAY  ! 
UPON  THE  ROCK  OF  AGES 

THEY  RAISE  THY  HOLY  TOWER  ; 
THINE  is  THE  VICTOR'S  LAUREL, 

AND  THINE  THE  GOLDEN  DOWER  !" 

From  these  stanzas  the  compilers  have  extracted  the 
finest  figure — have  hitched  to  it  a  passage  with  which 
it  has  no  connection  in  thought,  or  style,  or  contiguity, 
and  have  reduced  it  to  mere  rhyme  and  bad  grammar, 
in  the  following  stanza : 

"  Oh  one,  oh  only  mansion, 

Oh  paradise  of  joy, 
Where  tears  are  ever  banished, 

And  smiles  have  no  alloy  j 
Thou  hast  no  shores,  fair  ocean, 

Thou  hast  no  time,  bright  day, 
Dear  fountain  of  refreshment 

To  pilgrims  far  away." 

But  even  this  is  not  all.  The  thirty-fourth  stanza  of 
"The  Celestial  Country"  (we  cite  from  the  "Seven 
Great  Hymns,"  in  which  alone  it  is  divided  into  num 
bered  stanzas)  contains  these  lines  : 

"  Jerusalem  the  glorious, 
The  glory  of  the  elect, 
O  dear  and  future  vision 
That  eager  hearts  expect" 

The  forty-second  stanza  contains  these : 

"  O  sweet  and  blessed  country, 
Shall  I  ever  see  thy  face  ? 
O  sweet  and  blessed  country, 
Shall  I  ever  win  thy  grace  ?  " 

Will  it  be  believed  that  such  remote  and  discon- 


Tinker i?ig  Hymns.  67 

nected  lines  have  been  extracted  and  brought  together 
thus  ?— 

"  Oh  sweet  and  blessed  country , 

The  home  of  God^s  elect ! 
Oh  sweet  and  blessed  country, 

That  eager  hearts  expect. 
Jesus  in  mercy  bring  us 

To  that  dear  land  of  rest ; 
Who  art  with  God  the  Father 
And  Spirit  ever  blest." 

The  last  four  lines,  it  is  to  be  observed,  are  not  a  part 
of  "The  Celestial  Country,"  but  are  the  work  of  some 
other  author.  Does  any  other  hymnal  in  the  English 
language  possess  another  such  a  specimen  of  conglom 
erate  as  this  unhappy  stanza  ? 

The  leading  and  intelligent  minds  of  the  Episcopal 
Church  will  not  accept  these  mutilated  and  injured 
hymns.  The  originals  are  too  well  known  to  suffer 
these  spurious  copies  to  be  accepted  or  forgotten. 
Within  the  last  two  years  there  has  sprung  up  a 
wonderful  interest  in  these  old  lyrics  of  the  me 
diaeval  church.  As  that  study  increases,  this  subject 
will  be  reconsidered.  The  student  who  comes  back  to 
his  Prayer-Book  to  find  that  it  is  false  to  the  authors 
who  enrich  its  pages,  will  seek  to  purify  it.  The  cler 
gyman  who  knows  the  original  hymn  will  never  inflict 
on  his  congregation  the  spurious  copy.  Time  will 
right  the  error,  if  the  Church  be  not  wise  enough  to 
right  it  now. 


AMERICAN  MINISTERS  ABROAD. 


THE  Motley  correspondence  brought  prominently 
into  view  some  of  the  many  small  miseries  and  incon 
veniences  which  those  have  to  undergo  who  have  the 
honor  or  the  misfortune  to  represent  the  United  States 
at  foreign  courts.  In  the  first  place,  as  diplomacy  is 
not  a  profession  with  us,  the  men  who  do  our  diplo 
matic  business  are  rarely  trained  for  it — a  circum 
stance  which,  if  they  only  know  the  language  of  the 
countries  to  which  they  are  sent,  and  possess  some 
familiarity  with  the  ways  of  European  society,  we  do 
not  consider  a  very  great  disadvantage  as  far  as  the 
conduct  of  the  business  is  concerned.  We  have,  on 
the  whole,  fared  very  well  in  most  of  the  great  negotia 
tions  which  we  have  had  to  carry  on,  and  have  had, 
whenever  we  have  taken  pains,  little  difficulty  in  find 
ing  matches  for  the  wariest  and  astutest  of  European 
statesmen.  But,  then,  the  very  fact  that  diplomacy  is 
not  a  profession  in  this  country,  and  that  all  kinds  of 
men  are,  for  all  sorts  of  reasons,  sent  to  represent  us 
abroad,  inevitably  lessens  the  social  consideration  en 
joyed  by  even  our  best  ministers.  The  best  man  we 


yo  American  Ministers  Abroad. 

can  select  suffers  more  or  less  at  the  outset,  from  the 
fact  that  he  is  not  a  member  of  a  regular  calling,  and 
that  his  fitness,  either  natural  or  acquired,  may  have 
had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  his  appointment. 
Then  he  has,  in  a  measure,  to  bear  a  portion  of  the 
legacy  of  disgrace  bequeathed  by  those  who  in  the  old 
Democratic  days  got  drunk  at  this  court,  did  not  pay 
their  bills  at  that  one,  and  had  street-fights  at  another, 
and  at  a  fourth  lived  in  an  attic  and  did  their  own 
cooking.  So  that  each  American  minister,  instead  of 
finding  a  high  social  position  ready-made  for.  him,  as 
the  diplomatists  of  other  nations  do,  is  apt  to  have  to 
make  one  for  himself.  The  presumptions,  in  fact,  in 
stead  of  being  favorable  to  him,  are  too  often  against 
him.  This  is  a  small  matter  in  the  case  of  men  like 
Motley  or  Adams  or  Marsh,  whose  character  and 
standing  are  already  known  in  Europe ;  but  some 
of  their  obscure  brethren  have  found  that  being  an 
American  minister  did  not  at  first  smooth  their  path  in 
foreign  society. 

In  the  next  place,  the  European  and  the  American 
theories  of  the  use  of  foreign  legations  differ  very  mate 
rially.  To  European  governments  the  conduct  of  nego 
tiations  is  but  one  part,  and  often  only  a  subordinate 
part,  of  a  minister's  business.  In  fact,  it  is  very  com 
mon,  when  affairs  of  importance  are  under  discussion, 
to  send  out  an  envoy  extraordinary  to  supersede,  or  at 
least  act  as  adjunct,  to  the  regular  resident.  The  main 
object  of  European  governments  in  keeping  an  ambas 
sador  at  foreign  courts  is  to  get  information  of  the 


American  Ministers  Abroad.  71 

temper,  feelings,  and  opinions  and  tendencies  of  the 
classes  who  control  the  affairs  of  each  country,  so  that 
when  difficult  crises  arise  the  government  at  home  may 
have  such  knowledge  of  the  persons  with  whom  it  is 
dealing  and  of  the  influences  by  which  these  persons 
are  affected  as  will  help  it  to  determine  what  it  shall 
ask  or  what  it  shall  yield.  The  duty  of  the  diplomatist 
is,  in  other  words,  rather  to  supply  facts  than  to  make 
bargains  or  express  opinions.  Now,  the  qualities  which 
fit  a  man  to  do  this  sort  of  work  effectually  are  those 
which  would  fit  a  man  to  shine  in  the  "  good  society " 
of  any  country — good  manners,  a  good  deal  of  social 
experience,  a  fair  share  of  talent  for  conversation,  con 
siderable  knowledge  of  the  world  in  which  he  is  moving, 
skill  in  entertaining  in  his  own  house  and  money  enough 
to  do  it  with,  and,  above  all  else,  a  good  knowledge  of 
French,  and  also,  in  most  cases,  of  the  language  of  the 
country  to  which  he  is  accredited.  But  French  is 
always  indispensable;  we  do  not  mean  by  "French" 
the  horrible  jargon  in  which  the  mass  of  Americans 
and  Englishmen  order  their  beefsteaks  in  Parisian  res 
taurants,  but  French  which  will  fit  a  man  to  talk  easily 
and  pleasantly  on  any  subject  which  is  likely  to  come 
up  at  a  dinner-table,  to  mark  the  finer  distinctions  in 
his  own  thoughts  and  catch  those  which  are  made  by 
others  in  theirs,  to  play  his  part  in  a  little  badinage,  to 
carry  him  comfortably  over  as  much  literature  or  meta 
physics  as  is  likely  to  present  itself  in  the  salon,  and 
to  qualify  him  to  discuss  any  political  subject  with  firm 
ness  and  precision.  No  European  diplomatist  is  con- 


72  American  Ministers  Abroad. 

sidered  fit  for  his  place  who  has  not  at  least  the  fore 
going  accomplishments.  His  government,  if  it  be  that 
of  a  first-class  power,  pays  him  enough  to  entertain 
freely  and  handsomely  without  encroaching  on  his  pri 
vate  fortune,  and  generally  provides  him  with  a  good 
house.  What  it  exacts  of  him  is  that  he  shall  be  civil 
to  such  of  his  own  countrymen  as  are  of  a  certain  rank, 
that  he  shall  mingle  constantly  and  freely  in  foreign 
society,  and  keep  his  eyes  and  ears  open,  and  report 
regularly  and  faithfully  what  he  sees  and  hears.  Most 
of  his  work  is  really  done  at  dinner-tables  and  evening 
parties,  and  in  clubs  and  in  private  chit-chat.  Treaties, 
protocols,  and  "  notes "  rarely  contain  anything  which 
has  not  been  settled,  or,  at  all  events,  shadowed  forth 
over  the  wine  and  the  nuts  in  town  and  country  houses. 
The  European  ambassador  is  protected  also  from  too 
heavy  drafts  on  his  hospitality  by  the  custom  which 
gives  nobody  a  claim  on  his  social  recognition  who  is 
not  a  member  of  the  court  circle  at  home,  that  is,  who 
has  not  been,  or  might  not  be,  if  he  chose,  presented 
to  his  own  sovereign.  This  not  only  keeps  down  the 
number  of  claimants  on  the  minister's  attention,  but 
saves  him  the  necessity  of  having  to  sift  for  himself 
those  of  his  country  men  and  women  who  want  to  go 
into  foreign  society  under  his  wing. 

The  American  idea  of  the  uses  of  an  ambassador 
differs  widely  from  the  foregoing.  The  public  here  is 
so  little  used  to  seeing  any  political  results  accomplish 
ed  by  purely  social  influences,  or  in  fact  in  any  way 
but  through  the  ordinary  process  of  agitation,  speech- 


American  Ministers  Abroad.  73 

making,  and  article-writing,  that  it  would  never  think 
of  selecting  an  ambassador  for  his  social  gifts.  We  are 
so  far  removed  from  government  by  classes  or  coteries, 
that  nine-tenths  of  our  people  would  be  greatly  amused 
if  asked  to  give  a  man  a  high  office  because  he  spoke 
French  well,  could  give  handsome  dinners,  and  made 
himself  very  agreeable  in  drawing-rooms.  The  claims 
in  a  candidate  for  a  diplomatic  mission  which  most 
commend  themselves  to  the  majority  of  our  political 
managers,  who  in  this  only  reflect  the  popular  senti 
ment,  are,  of  course,  his  political  services  in  the  last 
party  struggle,  and  his  ability  as  a  political  speaker  or 
writer,  or  as  a  lawyer.  Occasionally  the  standard  rises 
higher ;  it  did  so  during  Mr.  Lincoln's  administration 
under  the  pressure  of  terrible  danger  from  abroad,  but 
this  is  of  rare  occurrence. 

Consequently,  the  chances  are  that  when  one  of  our 
ministers  goes  abroad,  he  finds  himself  unprovided  with 
any  of  the  tools  which  his  brother  diplomatists  are 
using.  He  has,  probably,  never  cultivated  society 
much,  and  has  no  great  powers  of  conversation.  His 
knowledge  of  European  life  and  habits  of  thought  is 
imperfect ;  his  knowledge  of  French  so  slight  as  to 
condemn  him  either  to  total  silence  or  pantomime  in 
general  society.  The  Government  gives  him  about  the 
salary  which  would  enable  him  to  make  a  good  show 
in  a  New  England  country  town,  and  no  house ;  and, 
nevertheless,  makes  it  his  sacred  duty  to  pay  every 
possible  civility  to  every  American  man,  woman,  or 
child  who  can  by  hook  or  crook  muster  enough  money 
4 


74  American  Ministers  Abroad. 

to  pay  his  or  her  expenses  to  the  door  of  the  legation. 
Fifty  years  ago,  when  it  took  six  weeks  with  a  fair 
wind  to  get  from  New  York  to  Liverpool,  and  when  a 
journey  on  the  European  Continent  was  done  in  dili 
gences  and  post-chaises,  and  when  only  the  Ticknors 
and  Sillimans  and  Irvings  had  made  their  way  over,  it 
was  easy  enough  for  an  American  minister  to  open  his 
door  to  all  his  fellow-citizens  and  take  them  round  to 
see  the  King  after  dinner.  But  the  times  have  changed. 
Tens  of  thousands  now  cross  the  Atlantic  every  spring, 
of  whom  three-eighths  belong  to  a  class  which  in  no 
other  country  in  the  world  possesses  the  means  of  mak 
ing  the  "grand  tour,"  or  ever  thinks  of  it.  Of  late 
years  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  very  wealthiest  have 
been  persons  who  have  made  fortunes  rapidly,  and  to 
say  the  least  are  not  attractive  in  mind  or  manners. 
They  swarm  now  in  every  European  capital,  and  hav 
ing  plenty  of  diamonds  and  shawls,  and  couriers  and 
maids,  they  see  no  reason  why  the  European  salons 
should  not  be  open  to  them.  They  are  nearly  always 
determined  at  all  events  to  go  to  court,  and  to  make 
the  minister  take  them,  and  the  unfortunate  man  in 
most  cases  dares  not  refuse.  He  is  pricked  on  the  one 
side  by  the  thorns  of  European  etiquette,  which  he 
knows  makes  it  improper  for  him  to  take  people  of 
certain  callings  or  position  into  the  presence  of  royalty ; 
and  he  is  assailed  on  the  other  by  the  fear  of  being 
abused  and  held  up  to  popular  odium  at  home  as  a 
snob  and  a  flunky,  a  servile  imitator  of  the  bloated  and 
effete  aristocracy.  He  is  sure  to  be  made  miserable 


American  Ministers  Abroad.  75 

whichever  course  he  adopts,  and  as  the  opinion  of  his 
own  countrymen  is  after  all  what  is  of  most  importance 
to  him,  he  generally  succumbs,  and  ushers  them  into 
the  court  drawing-rooms  in  great  droves,  which  furnish 
a  laughing-stock  to  the  other  diplomatists  and  the  so 
ciety  of  the  place.  This  the  droves  do  not  mind,  how 
ever  ;  they  see  the  Empress  and  show  their  own  clothes, 
and  those  may  laugh  who  win. 

The  late  Mr.  Mason,  during  his  occupancy  of  the 
Paris  mission,  was  in  this  particular  one  of  the  most 
kind-hearted  of  men,  and  never  had  the  heart  to  refuse 
anybody  who  wanted  a  peep  at  the  Tuileries  on  state 
occasions.  So  he  introduced  Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry 
to  the  Empress,  and  at  last  introduced  a  German 
barber,  whose  profession,  though  he  went  to  court  in 
the  sacred  character  of  an  American  citizen,  somebody 
had  the  cruelty  to  reveal  to  her  Majesty,  who  was  high 
ly  indignant  thereat,  the  European  theory  being  that 
the  palace  is  the  king's  own  house,  and  that  he  has  as 
much  right  to  choose  who  shall  come  into  it  as  his 
guests  as  any  private  citizen  in  Fifth  Avenue  or  Beacon 
Street  has  to  select  his  company.  The  result  was  that 
it  was  determined  at  court  to  make  an  effort  to  sift  the 
American  applications  for  invitations  and  presentations, 
and  when  Mr.  Dayton  arrived  and  sent  in  his  list,  he 
was  asked  to  annex  to  each  name  the  "  qualite,"  i.e., 
calling  or  condition  of  the  owner.  This  he  declined  to 
do,  and  the  invitations  were  not  issued,  and  some 
scores  of  women,  with  their  best  clothes  on  and  their 
hair  ready  dressed,  were  stricken  with  consternation. 


76  American  Ministers  Abroad. 

Somebody  intervened  at  the  last  moment  and  had  the 
cards  issued,  so  that  much  suffering  and  disappoint 
ment  was  saved,  but  the  whole  party  received  a  severe 
scolding  from  Mr.  Seward,  who  painted  in  glowing 
colors  the  vanity  of  court  life,  and  the  indecency  of 
being  abroad  begging  for  Imperial  invitations  when  the 
country  was  convulsed  by  civil  war.  A  sensitive  minis 
ter  who  mixes  much  in  native  society,  and  knows  what 
the  feelings  of  his  brother  diplomatists  are,  probably 
suffers  enough  in  the  course  of  a  year,  either  from  hav 
ing  to  take  his  country  men  and  women  to  court,  or 
from  having  to  find  excuses  for  not  taking  them,  to  en 
title  him  to  a  retiring  pension.  It  is  related  that  one 
distinguished  diplomatist  used,  when  a  letter  of  intro 
duction  was  sent  up  to  him,  to  come  down  on  tiptoe 
and  take  a  view  of  the  bearer  through  a  chink  in  the 
door  before  receiving  him ;  if  he  did  not  like  his  ap 
pearance,  he  was  not  at  home  ;  but  if  the  disappointed 
visitor  was  a  McCracken,  he  probably  went  off  and  de 
nounced  him  as  a  "hater  of  our  institutions"  and  a 
servile  worshipper  of  the  aristocracy. 

Our  own  opinion  is  that  no  American  minister  of 
education  and  character  will  be  able  to  endure  the  ser 
vice,  organized  as  it  is,  very  much  longer.  The  pay  is 
miserably  insufficient;  the  position  is  in  many  ways 
one  of  extreme  difficulty  and  embarrassment.  Ameri 
can  travellers  multiply  with  the  growth  of  the  country 
in  wealth,  and  the  impudence  and  exactions  of  many  of 
them  increase  in  the  ratio  of  their  numbers.  Their 
minister  is  to  a  large  proportion  of  them  a  kind 


American  Ministers  Abroad. 


77 


of  valet  de  place,  who  is  bound  to  secure  for  them 
abroad  things  which  in  European  society  are  only 
granted  to  the  possessors  either  of  certain  conventional 
distinctions  or  to  great  talents  or  great  charms.  And 
there  is  not  one  of  them  who  may  not  prove  any  day,  as 
in  McCracken's  case,  a  spy  and  slanderer  as  well  as  a 
bore,  if  there  are  men  at  Washington  silly  enough  or 
base  enough  to  read  and  use  his  tattle.  Where  the 
remedy  is  to  be  found  we  do  not  know,  but  it  must  be 
found  somewhere.  Either  our  ministers  abroad  must 
be  released  from  all  social  duties,  or  they  must,  in  per 
forming  them,  be  allowed  to  conform  to  the  customs 
and  even  prejudices  of  the  society  in  which  they  are 
living. 


HORSE-RACING. 


AN  attempt  has  been  made  lately  to  render  horse- 
racing  a  "  genteel "  amusement  in  this  country — some 
thing  which  people  belonging  to  what  is  called  "  good 
society  "  will  go  to  see,  and,  seeing,  grow  fond  of — by 
the  opening  of  a  course  called  the  "Jerome  Park," 
near  this  city.  The  matter  has  been  taken  in  hand  by 
the  chiefs  of  what  are  called  "  fashionable  "  circles  in 
New  York.  A  good  course  has  been  laid  out,  a  "  grand 
stand "  provided,  the  sale  of  liquors  prohibited,  and 
everything  done  that  money  or  zeal  can  do  to  surround 
the  enterprise  with  an  air  of  respectability,  and,  above 
all,  to  make  the  course  a  "place  fit  for  ladies."  Good 
horses,  too,  were  entered  for  the  opening  races ;  very 
fair  running  was  made  ;  the  weather  was  fine  ;  the  pro 
ceedings  were  marked  by  the  utmost  order,  and  Gen 
eral  Grant  was  there.  And  yet  we  have  no  hesitation 
in  saying  that,  regarded  as  an  attempt  to  make  horse- 
racing  a  national  sport  to  which  young  and  old  of  all 
classes  will  turn  with  zest  for  enjoyment,  it  was  a  com 
plete  failure,  and  will  prove  a  failure  no  matter  how 
often  repeated.  We  do  not  by  any  means  rejoice  over 


8o  Horse-Racing. 

this  result.  In  fact,  we  regret  it ;  because  we  believe 
horse-racing  might  improve  the  breed  of  horses ;  it  is 
not  necessarily  immoral,  and  we  wish  most  heartily 
that  some  means  might  be  discovered  of  bringing  large 
bodies  of  Americans  together  in  the  open  air  for  simple 
amusement  without  any  thought  of  "instruction."  We 
have  no  theatres  out  of  New  York,  and  we  cannot  be 
exactly  said  to  "unbend"  at  lectures  or  mass  meet 
ings.  But  horse-racing  is  not  likely  to  prove  our  na 
tional  game,  and  we  propose  to  give  the  reason  why, 
and  more  especially  why  the  Jerome  Park  enterprise  is 
likely  to  prove  a  failure. 

In  the  first  place,  that  particular  form  of  horse- 
racing  which  is  the  only  one  which  really  tests  the 
animal's  full  powers — galloping  full  speed  under  the 
saddle — is  one  which  excites  now  hardly  any  real  in 
terest  in  the  Northern  States.  We  are  no  longer  an 
equestrian  community.  Not  one  in  a  thousand  of  our 
men  knows  how  to  ride  or  ever  gets  into  a  saddle  from 
year's  end  to  year's  end.  Without  having  any  special 
knowledge  on  the  subject,  we  venture  to  assert  that 
the  principal  promoters  of  this  very  enterprise — Mr. 
Jerome  himself,  for  example,  or  Mr.  Belmont,  are  never 
seen  on  horseback  and  do  not  particularly  enjoy  riding. 
A  certain  taste  for  horseback  exercise  has  been  devel 
oped  of  late  years  in  New  York  and  other  cities,  but 
those  who  show  it  might  be  counted  on  one's  fingers. 
There  are  two  or  three  dozen  young  men  and  women 
in  New  York  who  ride  regularly  and  enjoy  it ;  there 
are  some  dozen  of  others,  and  a  few  elderly  gentlemen, 


Horse-Racing.  8 1 

who  take  it  as  a  medicine,  like  bitters  or  cod-liver  oil, 
to  cure  dyspepsia,  or  avert  consumption,  or  ward  off 
the  assaults  of  old  age ;  but  there  is  not  amongst  the 
population  at  large,  or  even  amongst  the  class  which 
can  afford  to  keep  horses,  any  hearty  love  of  it,  or  any 
interest  in  horses  in  their  highest  and  noblest  char 
acter — saddle-horses. 

This  is  due  partly  to  the  fact  that  to  love  the  sad 
dle,  to  get  into  it  with  zest,  one  must  use  it  from  youth 
up.  But  very  few  of  our  young  men  can  afford  to  use 
it.  At  the  age  when  physical  tastes  and  habits  are 
formed  or  developed,  our  men  are  generally  poor  and 
struggling  for  subsistence.  As  they  get  older  they  are 
absorbed  in  business,  and  by  the  time  they  have  won 
fortune  and  leisure  they  are  stiff  and  flabby  and  nerv 
ous.  A  trot  or  canter  in  the  saddle  has  no  more  at 
traction  for  them  than  exercise  on  parallel  bars.  Then, 
our  climate  makes  riding  repulsive  to  all  who  have  not 
a  strong  natural  love  for  it,  and  whose  frame  has  not 
become  hardened  to  it.  In  winter  the  cold  is  intense 
and  the  roads  abominable.  In  summer  the  heat  is  so 
great  as  to  make  all  motion  exhausting,  and  the  roads 
are  dusty  beyond  endurance.  In  the  spring  and  fall 
the  days  are  so  short  that  for  business  men  the  hours 
given  to  amusement  in  the  open  air  would  have  to  be 
stolen  from  sleep.  Carriages,  too,  are  cheap  and  com 
fortable,  and  in  harness  one  horse  can  carry  more  than 
one  man — an  important  consideration  in  a  country  in 
which,  until  very  recently,  large  fortunes,  and  especially 
hereditary  fortunes,  were  unknown.  The  result  is  that 
4* 


82  Horse-Racing. 

our  lads  have  the  same  passion  for  wheeled  vehicles 
and  have  the  same  familiarity  with  the  management  of 
them  that  a  Hungarian  boy  or  an  English  boy  of  the 
upper  classes  has  for  saddle-horses.  The  ambition  of 
the  American  boy  with  a  love  for  open-air  life  is,  there 
fore,  a  wagon  and  a  fast  trotter.  He  does  not  care 
for  a  saddle-horse,  and  will  rarely  use  one  unless  as  a 
means  of  accompanying  a  girl  for  whom  he  begins  to 
feel  a  "penchant,"  as  the  novel-writers  say.  The 
saddle-horse  is,  in  a  certain  sense,  a  strange  animal  to 
him,  which  he  ought,  perhaps,  to  enjoy  using,  and  of 
which  he  feels  bound  to  speak  respectfully,  but  which 
he  does  not  take  to.  He  is  interested  about  trotting, 
harness,  wagons,  blankets  to  wrap  his  feet  in,  but  about 
saddles,  bridles,  and  "running"  or  galloping,  he  is 
not  interested.  His  first  luxury  is  a  one-horse  team ; 
as  he  gets  older  and  richer  he  increases  the  number, 
and  reaches  the  summit  of  his  ambition  when,  like  Mr. 
Jerome,  he  possesses  and  drives  a  four-in-hand,  or,  like 
Mr.  Vanderbilt  or  Mr.  Bonner,  has  $15,000  or  $20,000 
invested  in  a  pair  which  can  outstrip  everything  he 
meets. 

Therefore,  to  most  of  those  who  went  to  the  races  at 
the  Jerome  Park — outside  the  old  set  who  go  to  all 
races  for  the  sake  of  betting — the  galloping  of  horses 
under  the  saddle  was  not  very  exciting  or  interesting. 
Americans  are  thoroughly  utilitarian  even  in  their 
sports,  and  the  uselessness  of  speed  in  running  is  prob 
ably  present  to  the  minds  of  nine  men  out  of  ten,  and 
women  too,  every  time  they  witness  it.  That  it  is  the 


Horse-Racing.  83 

natural  pace  of  the  horse,  that  it  ^g^y  in  it  that  his 
full  powers  are  brought  into  plzfi^f  that  its  effects 
on  breeding  are  likely  to  be  good,  are  considerations 
too  remote  to  affect  the  crowd.  Trotting  they  under 
stand  ;  fast  trotting  every  man  who  gets  into  a  wagon 
can  turn  to  account — but  "  running  "  seems  a  sort  of 
idle  trick,  like  those  taught  circus  horses.  In  fact,  we 
have  heard  cantering — one  of  the  most  graceful  of 
paces,  and  that  which,  on  account  of  its  ease  for  the 
rider,  is  far  better  adapted  to  summer  riding  in  our 
climate  than  trotting — sworn  at  on  account  of  its  resem 
blance  to  the  performances  in  the  arena. 

Now,  to  make  racing  under  the  saddle  popular  and 
national,  it  must  be  begotten  by  the  national  tastes  and 
habits.  There  is  only  one  country  in  the  Western 
world  in  which  it  can  be  said  to  be  thus  produced,  and 
that  is  England.  The  taste  for  saddle  exercise  is  there 
kept  up  by  the  time-honored  practice  of  fox-hunting, 
which  makes  it  the  darling  ambition  of  every  boy  to  be 
able  to  "  ride  to  hounds,"  and  of  every  man  who  can 
muster  the  means  to  be  in  the  saddle  as  much  as  possi 
ble.  The  climate,  too,  favors  it,  as  there  is  no  season 
of  the  year  in  which  active  exercise  in  the  open  air  is 
not,  as  far  as  temperature  is  concerned,  perfectly  agree 
able.  Races  there  owed  their  origin  to  the  desire  of 
improving  the  breed  of  hunters,  and  hunters  are  used 
by  the  whole  upper  class — men  bred  to  the  saddle 
from  their  infancy,  and  exercising  a  most  powerful 
influence  on  all  the  classes  below  them.  The  practice 
once  begun,  it  has  been  kept  up  partly  by  the  love  of 


84  Horse-Racing. 

horse-flesh  thus^eveloped,  and  partly  by  the  love  of 
gambling  amongst  those  who  know  and  care  nothing 
about  horse-flesh,  and  partly  by  fashion. 

It  is  needless  to  point  out  how  widely  different  the 
circumstances  are  under  which  the  amusement  is  reviv 
ed  at  the  North.  Those  who  are  bolstering  it  up  here 
do  not  stand  to  the  community  in  the  same  relation  in 
which  the  English  patrons  of  the  turf  stand  to  English 
society.  Our  patrons  of  horse-racing  are  not  the  cream 
of  our  society,  either  mentally  or  physically  or  morally. 
Their  influence  and  example  go  for  absolutely  nothing, 
except  amongst  a  small  set  of  not  very  refined  people 
in  New  York,  who  are  attempting  in  various  ways  a 
reproduction,  by  no  means  successful,  of  the  follies  and 
absurdities  of  French  life.  Even  in  Paris,  where  there 
is  a  court  and  a  real  aristocracy  bred  to  "  manly  sports," 
it  has  been  found  impossible  to  make  horse-racing  a 
national  amusement,  in  spite  of  the  encouragement 
given  it  by  the  Government  and  men  of  rank  and  fash 
ion,  and  for  the  very  reason  which  bars  its  success 
here — the  fact  that  the  French  are  not  an  equestrian 
people,  and  do  not  as  a  community  use  the  saddle. 
The  races  at  Longchamps,  in  spite  of  the  eclat  given 
them  by  the  court,  are  attended  by  the  Parisians  as  a 
"  spectacle,"  just  as  a  review  of  troops  on  the  Champs 
de  Mars,  and  not  because  they  care  one  straw  about  the 
horses.  When  the  races  are  over,  nobody  outside  the 
small  betting  circle  round  the  Jockey  Club  knows  the 
name  of  the  winning  horse,  or  at  least  cares  to  know, 
or  has  five  sous  depending  on  the  result ;  for  the  French 


Horse-Racing.  85 

do  not,  for  some  reason  or  other,  seem  to  take  to  this 
form  of  gambling. 

In  the  second  place,  racing,  even  in  England,  where 
it  is  found  in  perhaps  greater  perfection  than  anywhere 
else,  has  proved,  in  so  far  as  it  professes  to  be  of  ma 
terial  use,  a  dead  failure.  The  great  utilitarian  argu 
ment  in  its  favor  has  been  that  it  improved  the  breed 
of  horses.  It  is  now  confessed  that  it  not  only  does 
nothing  of  the  kind,  but  that  its  influence  on  horse- 
breeding  is  bad,  and  is  every  day  growing  worse.  All 
the  great  trainers  and  amateurs  acknowledge  this 
with  lamentations ;  for  some  years  back  the  press  has 
teemed  with  suggestions  of  remedy  or  reform.  It  has 
been  found  that  the  race-course  has  developed  the  love 
of  gambling  far  more  rapidly  than  the  love  of  horse 
flesh,  so  that  the  practice  has  grown  up  of  running 
leggy,  weedy,  half-developed  two  and  three-year  olds, 
with  just  constitution  enough  for  a  short  dash  to  decide 
the  bets,  but  not  enough  to  keep  them  alive  or  worth 
their  feed  after  one  or  two  races.  A  powerful  horse, 
with  plenty  of  wind  and  bottom  and  in  the  prime  of  his 
life,  is  now  a  rare  sight  on  the  English  turf,  and  the 
rickety  condition  of  the  thorough-breds  of  course  grad 
ually  affects  saddle-horses  of  all  other  grades.  The 
real  lovers  of  the  horse,  and  particularly  the  patrons  of 
the  hunting-field,  in  which  all  a  horse's  powers  are 
really  needed,  have  been  for  years  greatly  alarmed  by 
this  state  of  things,  and  have  been  racking  their  brains 
for  a  cure.  One  of  the  latest  propositions  with  this 
view  was  that  the  Prince  of  Wales  should  offer  a  prize 


86  Horse-Racing. 

for  four-year-olds  to  run  a  four-mile  race,  thus  tempting 
breeders  to  rear  horses  to  maturity  before  bringing 
them  out.  But  no  such  plan  is  ever  likely  to  produce 
much  effect.  The  sums  of  money  that  are  now  staked 
on  races  at  Epsom  and  Ascot  and  Newmarket  are 
enormous,  and  the  temptation  which  besets  a  man  who 
has  a  colt  or  filly  that  can  make  a  good  burst  for  a 
mile,  even  if  it  drops  down  dead  at  the  end,  to  bring  it 
out  at  once,  is  not  likely  to  be  overcome  by  any  prize 
that  can  be  offered.  The  horse  has  in  fact  become,  on 
the  English  turf,  a  mere  instrument  for  deciding  bets, 
a  kind  of  "  little  joker  "  whose  absolute  goodness  is  of 
very  small  importance  provided  he  is  relatively  fast. 
If  he  gets  in  before  anything  else,  it  does  not  make  the 
least  difference  whether  he  makes  a  mile  in  a  minute 
or  a  mile  in  five  minutes.  In  short,  the  turf  has  ceased 
to  exercise  any  improving  influence  on  the  breed  of 
horses,  while  it  has  done  much  to  injure  the  morals  of 
the  community ;  many  of  its  most  respectable  support 
ers  have  been  driven  into  closing  their  stables  by  the 
disgust  excited  by  the  scoundrels  with  whom  racing 
brings  them  in  contact.  The  turf  is  almost  given  over 
to  blacklegs  and  blackguards,  fellows  with  whom  an 
honest  man  cannot  even  bet  without  contamination, 
and  the  mania  for  betting  has  gone  down  through  all 
classes  of  the  community.  The  example  of  the  aris 
tocracy  has  infected  every  other  class.  Merchants 
bet,  clerks  bet,  and  errand-boys  bet.  Not  a  Derby- 
day  passes  that  there  are  not  defalcations  discovered 
amongst  unfortunate  shopmen  and  employees  whom 


Horse- Racing.  87 

the  gambling  mania  has  driven  into  crime.  A  whole 
class  of  professional  swindlers,  too,  called  "racing 
prophets,"  has  risen  into  existence,  which  trades  on  the 
credulity  of  the  betting  world  by  pretending  to  be  able 
to  tell  the  name  of  the  horse  that  is  to  win,  or  to  supply 
information  about  training  stables  to  assist  in  forming 
an  opinion,  and  openly  seeks  its  dupes  through  adver 
tisements  in  the  sporting  and  Sunday  papers.  It  is 
needless  to  say  what  the  effect  would  be  here,  with  our 
greater  excitability  of  temperament,  if  horse-racing  ever 
became  an  object  of  general  interest,  and  the  turf  were 
not  abandoned,  as  it  now  is,  to  as  thorough  a  set  of 
sharpers  as  ever  disgraced  a  moral  and  religious  com 
munity. 


SOME  OF   OUR   SOCIAL   PHILOSOPHERS. 


THE  riddle  of  the  painful  earth  is  naturally  more 
guessed  at  in  the  middle  of  Yankee  land  than  in  other 
regions.  Down  South  one  rather  exacting  social  prob 
lem  and  the  nocturnal  patrol  duty  which  its  presence 
entailed,  distracted  all  attention  from  other  questions 
of  like  nature.  These  are  mostly  of  recent  growth, 
and  our  Southern  brethren  are  still  bowing  down  to 
Dr.  Johnson  in  literature,  Dr.  Jalap  in  medicine,  Dr. 
John  Knox  in  religion  and  theology ;  and  in  sociology, 
so  far  as  it  has  been  studied,  Dr.  Nott  and  Mr.  Legree 
were  pretty  good  authorities  up  to  a  very  recent  date. 
The  negro  and  the  Jewish  Scriptures  of  the  Old  Tes 
tament  beat  the  Gospels  and  the  Reformers  quite  out 
of  the  field.  In  Baltimore,  to  be  sure,  the  novel  of 
"Emily  Chester"  was  produced,  but  that  apotheosis 
of  goose-flesh  was  preceded  by  nothing  like  it  and  fol 
lowed  by  nothing  like  it — it  was  paroxysmal  and  excep 
tional,  and,  besides,  before  it  was  published,  Maryland 
was  a  free  State. 


90  Some  of  our  Social  Philosophers. 

Here,  in  New  York,  we  have  Carl  Benson,  and  we 
used  to  have  Fanny  Fern,  who  now  and  then  shed  us  a 
ray  of  light  on  social  questions.  But  the  latter  has 
long  been  mute,  we  believe,  and  the  fern  leaves  are 
blown  away,  vanished  out  of  sight  and  out  of  mind. 
The  former  makes  less  impression  than,  with  his  abili 
ties  and  opportunities,  he  ought,  and  we  fear  will  never 
be  as  useful  to  American  society  as  he  deserves  to  be. 
He  is  apt  to  look  at  it  from  the  window  of  his  family 
coach ;  but  this  vehicle  is  so  uncommon  a  locus  standi 
for  observers  in  this  country  that  not  many  people  can 
be  at  all  expected  to  see  things  as  he  sees  them,  and  he 
can  never  address  a  thoroughly  appreciative  audience 
till  we  get  ourselves  all  ranged  in  ordered  classes,  with 
the  proper  gulf  fixed  between  Dives  and  Lazarus,  and 
Dives  and  Lazarus  properly  placed  relatively  to  the 
gulf  and  each  other.  But  that,  it  is  likely,  will  never 
happen,  Democracy  being  so  much  in  love  with  itself. 
Though  it  is  unwashed,  ungrateful,  fierce,  and  a  fail 
ure,  and  makes  the  judicious  grieve  for  these  its  many 
faults,  it  adds  to  them  impudent  self-complacency  and 
robust  perverseness ;  to  commit  suicide  because  only 
its  friends  like  its  behavior,  and  other  people  are  really 
compelled  to  confess  themselves  hardly  satisfied  with 
all  it  does,  it  quite  refuses. 

In  Massachusetts,  however,  we  count  our  social 
philosophers  not  by  ones  and  twos ;  they  are  many. 
There  are  Mrs.  Stowe,  and  the  Autocrat  of  the  Break 
fast  Table,  and  Gail  Hamilton,  and  Timothy  Titcomb, 
and  the  author  of  "  Moods,"  and  the  author  of  "  Young 


Some  of  our  Social  Philosophers.  9 1 

Knighthood,"  and  not  a  few  more  who,  if  they  do  not 
speak  for  themselves,  need  never,  in  Massachusetts,  be 
at  a  loss  for  some  league  or  association  to  speak  for 
them.  If  Carl  Benson  habitually  conceives  of  exis 
tence  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  wealthy  gentleman 
with  town-house  and  country-house,  to  whom  life  comes 
in  seasons — as  the  season  for  woodcock,  for  yachting, 
for  returning  to  the  city ;  who  possesses  butler,  picture- 
gallery,  library,  and  many  ounces  of  plate,  Mrs.  Stowe 
as  habitually  conceives  of  it  as  a  succession  of  fore 
noons  with  chores  and  housework,  and  an  occasional 
story  of  a  squirrel  to  a  small  nephew  hanging  round 
the  bread-tray,  and  a  succession  of  afternoons  with 
knitting  and  a  book  at  home ;  abroad,  a  soldier's  aid 
association,  perhaps,  or  Dorcas  society ;  perhaps  a  run 
into  Messrs.  Williams  &  Everett's ;  and  perhaps  a  call 
on  Mrs.  Marvyn,  who,  we  suppose,  must  now  be  read 
ing  "  Ecce  Homo,"  or  pensively  perusing  "  Les  Apo- 
tres,"  for  the  improvement  of  her  time  and  mind. 

She  is  shrewd  and  humorous  and  often  poetical,  but 
above  all  things  she  is  matronly  and  motherly.  "  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin"  is  slavery  exposed;  but  slavery  as  it 
affects  the  mansion  of  the  master  and  the  hut  of  the 
slave,  the  domestic  relations,  the  life  of  the  hearth 
stone,  and  only  incidentally  is  it  revealed  in  its  other 
aspects.  It  was  the  shiftlessness  of  its  household 
management  more  than  its  wickeder  features  which 
was  trying  to  the  soul  of  Miss  Ophelia.  Dred,  and 
Agnes  of  Sorrento,  we  are  not,  as  yet,  familiar  with ; 
but  the  "  Minister's  Wooing,"  certainly  that  was  carried 


92  Some  of  our  Social  Philosophers. 

on  amid  notable  housekeeping  and  much  dress-making 
— and  Dr.  Hopkins's  singing  angel  of  a  Mary  Scudder, 
Mrs.  Stowe,  with  characteristic  wisdom,  makes  an  ex 
cellent  plain  cook,  as  knowing  that  if  the  road  by  way 
of  the  eyes  and  ears  is  the  shortest  to  a  man's  heart 
before  marriage,  after  marriage,  even  in  the  case  of  the 
saintly  man,  the  shortest  road  lies  down  his  throat. 
And  nowadays  being  wise  with  the  wisdom  which  it 
gives  to  bear,  to  nurse,  to  rear,  to  watch,  to  lay  out  the 
dead,  to  comfort  the  living,  to  order  the  household 
well,  to  chronicle  small  beer,  and  devise  recipes,  she 
naturally  takes  to  the  chimney  corner,  talking  kindly, 
sensibly,  wittily,  and  sometimes,  let  us  confess,  just  a 
little  prosily,  as  one  may  in  one's  own  chimney  corner ; 
and  all  the  young  married  men,  and  young  married 
women,  and  those  who  contemplate  matrimony,  and 
gentlemen  whose  wives  now  and  then  nag  viciously 
and  show  temper  and  will  not  be  amenable  to  the  voice 
of  reason,  and  wives  themselves  who,  after  all,  it  is  to 
be  remembered,  can  frequently  on  such  occasions 
plead  that  inflictions  sore  long  time  they  bore  from 
servant  girls,  and  these  latter,  perpetual  emigrants — all 
may  sit  at  her  feet  and  learn  of  her  the  proper  conduct 
of  life  in  kitchen,  parlor,  and  pantry. 

The  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table  evidently  by 
preference  would  be  autocrat  of  the  Monday  morning 
breakfast  table  of  an  evangelical  church-going  family. 
It  is  a  fresh  sermon  that  he  likes  to  take  for  the  text 
of  his  monologue.  And  as  it  is  not  always  Monday 
morning,  he  shrewdly  gets  board  at  a  table  where  there 


Some  of  our  Social  Philosophers.  93 

is  a  divinity  student,  and  so  the  dissection  of  dogmas 
is  always  in  order.  The  particular  dogma  of  future 
punishment,  and  the  hopeless  eternity  of  it,  get  atten 
tion  in  "  Elsie  Venner  " — a  scientific  romance  of  the 
destiny  which  a  physician  can  discern  in  blood  and 
nervous  tissue,  the  physiologist's  flat  contradiction  of 
the  Westminster  divine.  This  is  the  motive,  as  the 
French  would  say,  of  works  which  not  the  Westminster 
divine  himself  would  deny  flow  from  a  reservoir  of 
observation  and  thought,  and  a  natural  fountain  of  wit 
and  humor. 

Timothy  Titcomb  Holland  has  such  a  Tupperian 
talent  for  truisms  that  his  talent  for  truths  can  hardly 
be  immense,  so  we  hesitate  the  less  about  refusing  to 
take  his  word  when  he  informs  us  that  in  writing  to 
young  men  and  young  women  he  is  as  a  brother.  A 
brother  is  of  some  particular  sex,  we  at  once  reply, 
displaying  an  astuteness  which  reminds  us  of  Timothy 
himself,  and  a  conclusiveness  which  does  not  remind  us 
of  him  at  all.  To  him,  as  Shakespeare  says  he  could, 
the  poet  of  imagination  all  compact  might  give  a  local 
habitation  and  a  name ;  but  for  us  to  decide  upon  his 
position  is  as  difficult  as  it  might  be  easy,  and  must  be 
impolite,  to  say  what  it  is  that  he  writes.  We  had  the 
advantage  of  reading  him  for  the  first  time  in  an  itali 
cized  copy  of  his  works,  too,  for,  before  we  had  it 
from  the  library,  it  had  passed  under  the  pencils  of 
several  young  ladies.  But  we  found  this  black-lead 
commentary  of  more  value  in  showing  us  that  he  wrote 
either  too  feebly,  or  just  feebly  enough  for  a  young 


94  Some  of  our  Social  Philosophers. 

ladies'  boarding-school  than  in  aiding  us  to  discover 
why  he  should  write  at  all,  or  from  what  standing-point 
he  viewed  the  world.  Perhaps  he  knew  some  of  the 
families,  alas,  how  numerous  !  which  have  on  their  book 
shelf  five  secular  books — Abbott's  "  Life  of  Napoleon ; " 
"  The  Prince  of  the  House  of  David ; "  a  gift-enter 
prise  illustrated  work  on  India,  China,  and  Japan  ; 
Headley's  "  Washington  and  his  Generals ; "  and  a 
combination  volume  containing  the  "  Proverbial  Phi 
losophy,"  Henry  Kirke  White,  and  Pollok's  "  Course 
of  Time  " — and  knowing  them,  decided  to  write  as  one 
who  had  found  a  market,  and  deliberately  addresses 
these  numerous  families  of  the  house  of  Titcomb  as 
Mrs.  Stowe  addresses  families  in  general,  and  Carl 
Benson  our  first  families,  and  the  Autocrat  families 
with  evangelical  family  altars. 

Of  the  sex  of  Gail  Hamilton,  whose  new  book  is  the 
cause  of  these  remarks,  there  is  not  the  least  doubt. 
She  is  an  unmistakable  woman  when  Mr.  Gilfillan  is  not 
her  theme,  not  without  the  pertness  and  tartness  with 
which  every  Halicarnassus  is  acquainted,  with  the  au 
dacity  which  knows  it  is  charming,  with  a  trifle  of  what 
a  bachelor  disputing  with  her  might  call  the  female 
tendency  to  brag  that  if  she  cannot  argue  she  can  feel, 
with  the  alleged  willingness  of  lovely,  lively  woman 
not  only  to  speak  her  mind,  which  is  much,  but  to 
speak  anyhow,  which  is  something  more.  Gail  Ham 
ilton,  as  she  confesses,  is  theological,  for  she  cannot 
help  it,  being  essentially  a  Puritan.  Mr.  Vallandigham 


Some  of  our  Social  Philosophers.  95 

would  not  recognize  her,  nor  Colonel  L.  P.  Milligan, 
of  Indiana,  and  we  doubt  if  Mrs.  Hemans  would,  or 
most  painters  in  the  grand  style,  or  Professor  Charles 
Kingsley  (but  this  is  a  historical  question),  or  any 
Englishman  with  "  The  Scarlet  Letter  "  in  hand ;  but 
let  a  man  study  the  last  developments  of  the  spirit  of 
Puritanism  in  its  adopted  and  more  kindly  home,  learn 
what  Palfrey  and  Lowell  can  teach  him,  and  visit  Con 
cord — a  thing  which  can  be  thoroughly  done  without 
travelling — and  he  perceives  that  Gail  Hamilton  is  a 
graceful  twig,  frequently  a  switch,  perhaps,  of  the  old 
Protestant  stock.  Equally  with  Cotton  Mather  or  Jona 
than  Edwards  she  lives  in  a  world  which  has  heaven 
close  above  it  and  hell  close  underneath  it,  though  hers 
is  not  exactly  the  hell  and  heaven  of  two  hundred 
years  ago ;  but  the  difference  is  not  in  the  boundaries 
of  her  earth  nor  the  nearness  of  them.  So,  down  on 
the  farm  in  the  hay  country,  the  meeting-house  in  sight, 
the  ancient  church  of  Ipswich  and  the  ancient  church  of 
Chebacco,  with  their  incidental  villages,  not  far  away, 
she  is  theological  and  polemical  and  religious  by  virtue 
of  being  alive.  "  Summer  Rest,"  her  last  volume,  with 
a  title,  by  the  way,  as  pretty  and  as  inconsequent  as  it 
ought  to  be,  will  show  all  her  characteristics,  warlike 
and  otherwise,  her  surface  flippancy  and  foolishness, 
her  real  earnestness  and  honesty,  her  womanly  good 
ness  and  her  good  sense,  her  keenness  of  thought,  her 
independence,  her  horrible  and  shameless  puns,  her 
frolic  and  sly  humor  and  dry  humor  and  wit,  and  her 


96  Some  of  our  Social  Philosophers. 

eagerness  to  do  to-day  in  her  generation  what  her 
Puritan  fathers  were  doing  generations  ago  in  their 
day — working  in  the  fear  of  God  to  free,  so  far  as  it 
may  be  freed,  the  human  spirit. 


WASTE. 


IT  will  not  be  very  strange  if  our  remote  posterity 
have  rather  a  poor  opinion  of  us,  their  excellent  ances 
tors.  They  will  have  learned  so  much  of  which  we  are 
ignorant  that  our  civilization,  admirable  as  it  is,  may 
appear  somewhat  rude  to  them.  Happy  as  we  are,  the 
time  may  come,  when  we  shall  seem  to  still  happier 
generations  to  have  had  but  scant  experience  of  the 
good  things  of  this  world.  They  will  hardly  look  back 
to  our  days,  as  Dante  did  to  those  of  his  ancestor 
Cacciaguida,  or  as  we  look  back  to  pre-revolutionary 
times,  as  presenting  a  picture  of  delightful  simplicity 
of  manners  and  innocence  of  living.  And  yet  they 
will  not  give  us  credit  for  having  gained  much  in  place 
of  our  lost  innocence.  It  would  be  a  little  trying,  but 
perhaps  it  is  not  impossible  that  they  may  even  regard 
us  as  having  hardly  got  out  of  the  woods  of  barbarism, 
and  may  detect  underneath  our  superficial  pretences 
the  old  habits  of  the  savage  still  clinging  to  us. 

We  are,  indeed,  so  well  off  that  even  this  poor 
opinion  need  not  matter  much  to  us.  But  we  might, 
if  we  chose,  be  a  good  deal  better  off.  The  arrange- 
5 


98  Waste. 

ments  for  the  comfort,  quiet,  and  enjoyment  of  daily 
life  are,  to  say  the  least,  not  quite  so  perfect  as  they 
might  be.  M.  Blot's  excellent  lectures  on  cookery  are 
a  rather  sharp  criticism  on  our  tastes  and  manners. 
Will  not  some  other  M.  Blot  come  to  teach  us  how  to 
dress  well,  or  how  to  build  and  furnish  comfortable 
houses  ? 

Who  knows  how  to  be  rich  in  America?  Plenty 
of  people  know  how  to  get  money ;  but  not  very  many 
know  what  best  to  do  with  it.  To  be  rich  properly 
is,  indeed,  a  fine  art.  It  requires  culture,  imagination, 
and  character.  A  man  who  should  practise  this  art 
with  success  would  be  one  of  the  greatest  benefactors 
of  his  time.  He  might  win  a  pure  fame  and  leave  an 
enduring  example.  To  be  rich  is  to  be  able  to  be 
magnanimous ;  to  conceive  and  to  execute  large,  splen 
did,  and  permanent  designs.  It  is  to  be  at  ease  and 
to  set  others  at  ease.  It  is  only  the  rich  man  who 
does  not  know  how  to  be  rich  that  finds  it  hard  to 
enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  The  man  who 
knows  the  art  passes  through  even  this  life,  to  use  one 
of  the  fine  phrases  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  "like  one  who 
has  entrusted  to  the  gods,  with  his  whole  soul,  all  that 
he  has."  Suppose  such  a  rich  man  to  live  in  our  time  ! 
"  Assuredly,"  said  Solon  to  Croesus,  "  he  who  possesses 
great  store  of  riches  is  no  nearer  happiness  than  he  who 
has  what  suffices  for  his  daily  needs ; "  but  surely  he 
has  some  means  of  happiness  which  the  other  does  not 
possess. 

One  of  the  signs  of  the  barbaric  as  distinguished 


Waste.  99 

from  the  civilized  temper  is  the  tendency  to  waste ;  and 
the  less  waste  in  a  community,  the  higher,  other  things 
being  equal,  is  its  civilization.  Our  social* organization 
does  not  come  out  well  if  tried  by  this  test.  We  Amer 
icans  are  given  to  wastefulness.  It  is  the  reaction 
from  the  parsimony  and  narrow  frugalities  of  the  hard 
early  days  of  the  nation,  and  is  one  of  the  consequences 
of  our  rapid  growth  in  wealth.  New  York  wastes  every 
day  more  than  would  have  supplied  all  its  wants  fifty 
years  ago  ;  and,  what  is  worse,  it  wastes  the  very  source 
of  its  own  prosperity.  Dirt  is  honest  and  useful  matter 
in  the  wrong  place.  To  correct  this  misplacement 
occupies  a  great  part  of  the  life  of  every  man.  The 
accumulation  of  dirt  on  a  large  scale  is  productive  of 
innumerable  offences  and  dangers  to  society.  To  uti 
lize  this  accumulation  by  its  proper  distribution  is  one 
of  the  chief  objects  of  social  organization ;  to  waste  it 
is  to  destroy  one  of  the  chief  elements  of  social  pros 
perity.  It  has  been  well  said  that  the  value  of  the  dirt 
of  a  city  in  any  given  time  is  far  greater  than  that  of 
any  single  product  of  industry  or  any  article  of  com 
merce.  No  gold  mine  is  so  full  of  value  as  the  dirt  of 
our  streets.  It  is  on  the  proper  distribution  and  appli 
cation  of  this  dirt,  or  its  replacement  in  its  right  posi 
tion,  that  the  very  life  of  the  city  in  the  long  run  de 
pends. 

England  has  been  lately  warned  by  a  high  authority 
of  the  fatal  diminution  of  her  resources  and  her  powers 
)y  her  rejection  and  waste  of  the  dirt  of  her  cities. 

lat  the  city  draws  to  herself  from  the  country  and 


ioo  Waste. 


turns  to  dirt,  must  be  returned  to  the  country  if  the 
land  is  to  remain  capable  of  sustaining  the  continuous 
drain.  Nature  takes  a  slow  but  sure  revenge  for  the 
neglect  of  man.  Dirt  wasted  corrupts  the  air  and  the 
waters,  impoverishes  the  land,  breeds  pestilence,  pro 
duces  poverty,  and  increases  misery.  Dirt  utilized 
makes  the  land  rich,  supplies  the  stores  of  nature, 
diminishes  poverty,  increases  happiness,  and  lengthens 
life.  And  yet  we  waste  our  dirt  and  tax  ourselves  to 
pay  the  expense  attending  the  waste  of  it. 

Our  habit  of  wastefulness  shows  itself  in  the  very 
construction  of  our  cities.  Hardly  a  house  in  New 
York  is  a  hundred  years  old.  The  city  has  been  pulled 
down  and  rebuilt  within  the  memory  of  man.  It  is 
likely  to  be  pulled  down  and  rebuilt  again  before  the 
end  of  the  century.  This  is,  no  doubt,  due  in  part  to 
the  absolute  requirements  of  progress,  to  the  change 
in  habits  and  in  business,  and  to  a  natural  growth.  But, 
however  much  of  the  rebuilding  may  be  assigned  to 
these  causes,  there  is  still  much  that  is  merely  and 
disastrously  wasteful ;  for  the  waste  of  labor,  of  capital, 
of  design,  involved  in  this  constant  process  of  destruc 
tion  and  renewal  is  beyond  computation.  Each  succes 
sive  generation  has  to  do  over  again  work  that  might 
be  done  once  for  all.  Work  lasts  but  twenty  years  which 
should  last  for  a  thousand.  The  accumulation  of  capi 
tal  is  impeded,  labor  is  employed  unproductively,  prog 
ress  in  all  cultivation  is  retarded,  and  the  plainest  dic 
tates  of  economy  and  good  sense  are  set  at  naught. 
New  York  seems  to  fulfil  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Haw- 


Waste.  101 

thorne's  cynical  humor,  that  no  dwelling  should  be 
allowed  to  serve  for  more  than  one  generation  of  men. 
One  of  the  reasons  why  we  fail  to, rival  the  Old  .World 
in  the  possession  of  the  products.;  cf  civilization,:  is  that 
we  have  spent  and  are  spending  -so  much-, of  our  time 
and  wealth  and  energy  in  doing  -work'  'over  and.'oVer 
again.  The  palaces  of  Venice  were  not  more  costly 
than  the  palaces  of  the  Fifth  Avenue.  But  those  of 
the  Fifth  Avenue  have  no  tenure  of  existence.  The 
palaces  of  Florence  are  old,  but  better  than  new. 
How  .shall  the  arts  flourish  among  us  if  their  best 
productions  are  to  be  more  short-lived  than  the  artist  ? 

For  the  mere  material  waste  implied  in  this  de 
struction  and  rebuilding  is  not  all.  We  fling  away  the 
inheritance  of  memories  and  associations  which  dignify 
and  exalt  life,  which  connect  it  by  visible  monuments 
with  the  past  and  the  future.  Both  the  imagination 
and  the  affections  suffer  where  there  is  nothing  vener 
able  for  them  to  cling  to,  where  there  is  no  hope  of 
permanence  for  their  highest  achievements.  We  make 
our  lives  barren  by  this  waste. 

Fine  as  our  houses  look,  comfortable  as  many  of 
them  are,  they  have  not  grown  out  of  the  heart.  They 
miss  the  essence  of  home.  They  are  but  the  lodging 
places  of  a  family,  and  next  year  they  will  be  to  let  to 
new  inmates.  In  one  of  his  delightful  descriptions  of 
an  English  place  Mr.  Hawthorne  says  : 

'•  All  about  the  house  and  domain  there  is  a  perfection  of  com 
fort  and  domestic  taste,  an  amplitude  of  convenience,  which  could 
have  been  brought  about  only  by  the  slow  ingenuity  and  labor  of 


102  Waste. 

many  successive  generations,  intent  upon  adding  all  possible  im 
provement  to  the  home  where  years  gone  by  and  years  to  come 
give  a  sort  of  permanence  to  the  intangible  present.  An  Amer 
ican  is  sometimes  tempted  to" -fancy  that  only  by  this  long  process 
can  real  homes  be  produced.  One  man's  lifetime  is  not  enough 
for  the  Hcccraplishir.trerit.o;f  suclva  work  of  art  and  nature,  almost 
the  grsatVst' merely  temporary 'one  that  is  confided  to  him;  too 
little,  at  any  rate — yet  perhaps  too  long  when  he  is  discouraged 
by  the  idea  that  he  must  make  his  house  warm  and  delightful  for 
a  miscellaneous  race  of  successors,  of  whom  the  one  thing  certain 
is  that  his  own  grandchildren  will  not  be  among  them." 

This  absence  of  the  sense  of  permanent  possession, 
and  hence  of  interest  in  the  real  worth  of  things,  is  one 
main  cause  of  the  evil  of  slight  and  poor  work,  which 
involves  not  only  waste  but  dishonesty.  The  dishonesty 
of  poor  work  may  seem  of  little  account  to  those  who 
are  content  with  make-shifts.  But,  to  look  at  it  from 
the  lowest  point  of  view,  bad  work  costs  in  the  long 
run  far  more  than  good.  In  many  of  our  trades  the 
thorough  workman  is  rare.  Our  houses  themselves, 
our  furniture,  our  books,  our  shoes,  too  often  give  the 
plainest  evidence  of  the  prevalence  of  bad  work.  It  is 
in  the  main  our  own  fault,  for  we  are  apt  to  prefer  a 
so-called  cheapness  to  excellence.  We  have,  too,  so 
much  work  to  do  that  we  slight  it  all.  But  the  careless 
workman  is,  according  to  Proverbs,  "brother  to  him 
that  is  a  great  waster." 

Another  most  prevalent  source  of  waste  among  us, 
and  another  indication  of  the  Oriental  barbarism  of 
our  tastes,  is  in  our  fondness  for  mere  extravagance 
and  display  unaccompanied  by  refinement  or  comfort. 


Waste.  103 

The  upholstery  of  a  steamboat  saloon  or  a  hotel  parlor, 
the  white  satin  hangings  of  the  silly  "bridal  apart 
ments,"  the  wearisome  excess  of  delicacies  at  our  pub 
lic  and  private  entertainments,  and  the  style  of  much 
of  the  dressing  of  our  women,  are  among  the  most 
obvious  instances  of  an  extravagance  which  is  purely 
wasteful,  without  any  compensation  of  elegance,  luxury, 
or  even  splendor.  We  are  young  and  fond  of  youthful 
follies,  and  shall  get  over  them  in  time,  no  doubt ;  but 
it  is  a  pity  that  our  good  sense  should  be  bullied  by 
the  vanity  of  "  shoddy  "  and  "  petroleum." 

The  readers  of  Mr.  Marsh's  admirable  book  on 
"  Man  and  Nature  "  will  not  have  forgotten  how  strik 
ingly  he  exhibits  the  wasteful  manner  of  our  dealing 
with  nature  herself,  and  with  what  force  he  sets  forth 
the  penalties  that  follow  upon  it.  The  resources  of 
nature  are  inexhaustible ;  but  man  may  exhaust  the 
stores  which  she  has  provided  for  his  use,  and  may  so 
deal  with  her  as  to  prevent  her  from  replenishing  them. 
Already  the  great  continental  forests,  wantonly  deso 
lated,  begin  to  fail  in  their  supply.  The  destruction 
of  the  woods  diminishes  the  stream  of  the  rivers,  and 
the  axe  in  the  hands  of  the  wasteful  wood-cutter  cuts 
off  the  waters  from  our  mills  and  lessens  the  tonnage 
in  our  river  ports.  We  kill  the  goose  who  laid  daily 
the  golden  egg.  Like  profligates,  we  waste  the  inheri 
tance  of  our  children,  and  hand  down  to  them  the 
ancient  estate  encumbered  with  post-obits,  the  records 
of  our  useless  squanderings. 


DRESS  AND  ITS  CRITICS. 


IT  has  recently  become  popular,  if  not  fashionable, 
to  promulgate  diatribes  against  the  extravagant  toilets 
of  American  women.  On  the  other  hand,  many  for 
eigners  have  openly  remarked,  and  not  a  few  natives 
more  quietly  observed,  a  growing  inattention  to  dress, 
a  tendency  to  shabbiness  and  slovenliness,  on  the  part 
of  American  men.  The  misogynist  would  probably 
explain  at  once  that  the  former  phenomenon  was  the 
direct  cause  of  the  latter ;  the  lords  of  creation  cannot 
attire  themselves  properly,  because  the  ladies  of  crea 
tion — their  wives  and  daughters — spend  all  the  money 
for  their  own  adornment.  But  the  complaint  against 
female  extravagance  is  as  old  as  imperial  Rome,  nay, 
as  republican  Athens  ;  it  has  often  coincided  with  the 
greatest  displays  of  male  dandyism  ;  and  besides,  this 
hypothesis  omits  all  consideration  of  unmarried  men. 

Many  of  the  distinctive  features  of  modern  male 
dress  may  be  explained  on  the  obvious  principle  of 
convenience  and  common  sense.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  trousers  of  to-day  as  compared  with  the  breeches 
of  our  great-grandfathers.  By-gone  wits  in  various 
5* 


106  Dress  and  its  Critics. 

languages  have  handed  down  to  us  several  descriptions 
of  the  beaux  in  former  centuries  getting  into  their 
breeches  \  an  operation  which  took  nearly  as  much 
time  and  trouble  as  it  now  does  to  launch  a  man-of- 
war.  For  a  later  example  take  the  cloak.  Men  by  no 
means  old  enough  to  be  grandsires  can  remember 
when  they  sported  the  "  full  circle,"  with  its  dozen  yards 
or  thereabouts  of  blue  cloth.  Elegant  and  graceful  it 
was,  and,  for  a  carriage  ride  to  a  full-dress  party,  very 
convenient,  but  for  all  other  purposes  very  inconven 
ient,  wherefore  it  has  everywhere^  given  place  to  some 
form  of  great-coat.  Even  the  "stove-pipe"  hat  is 
gradually  yielding  to  the  "  wide-awake." 

Influences  like  these  affect  all  nations ;  but  some 
thing  further  seems  to  be  at  work  among  ourselves. 
It  would  hardly  be  safe  to  accept  as  gospel  the  dicta 
of  all  foreigners,  such  as  Prince  Napoleon's  friend,  who 
asserted  that  tailors  proper  were  unknown  in  the  land  : 
"  the  American  buys  his  clothes  at  a  slop-shop,  and 
wears  the  same  suit  till  it  is  worn  out ; "  or  the  more 
recent  writer  in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  who  says 
that  the  millionnaires  of  St.  Louis  dress  like  hodmen, 
and  the  only  decently  attired  males  in  the  West  are  the 
professional  gamblers ;  but,  after  paring  down  these 
exaggerations,  there  is  a  very  positive  amount  of  truth 
in  the  charge,  and  it  is  the  more  singular  from  the  fact 
that,  till  within  a  few  years,  Americans  were  noted  for 
the  very  opposite  quality,  too  great  attention  to  dress. 
(  Vide  Thackeray's  "  Kickleburys  on  the  Rhine,"  and  al 
most  any  foreign  visitor's  book  between  1840  and  1860.) 


Dress  and  its  Critics.  107 

Shall  we  say  that  this  change  is  merely  another 
illustration  of  our  national  tendency  to  run  from  one 
extreme  to  another?  If  so,  why  do  not  the  women 
participate  in  it  to  a  greater  extent  ?  Or  is  it  a  neces 
sary  result  of  the  war?  Hardly;  for  the  war  has  not 
put  down  equipages,  or  dinners,  or  many  things  that 
cost  quite  as  much  as  a  man's  wardrobe.  Besides,  the 
deficiency  is  one  of  care  rather  than  expense :  a  lack 
of  wash-tub  and  brush  rather  than  of  new  broadcloth. 
Still,  war-prices  may  well  have  had  their  share  in  the 
result.  A  comparatively  minor  expense  may  change 
all  a  man's  habits  of  dress.  If  he  has  to  pay  three 
dollars  instead  of  one  for  his  dress-gloves,  he  will  begin 
to  economize  in  them,  and,  from  wearing  shabby  gloves, 
he  comes  rapidly  to  neglect  other  details. 

One  of  the  main  causes  of  negligence  in  dress 
doubtless  is  the  increasing  size  of  our  cities  and  the 
want  of  any  decent  transport  for  persons  of  moderate 
means.  Men  will  not  dress  themselves  carefully  to  go 
to  places  of  public  resort  if  they  have  no  reasonable 
prospect  of  making  a  cleanly  voyage  thither;  hence 
the  very  rusty  appearance  presented  by  the  pit,  not 
merely  of  our  best  theatres,  but  even  of  the  opera. 
Another  is  the  increasing  pressure  of  the  public  de 
mands  upon  every  man  whose  labor  is  of  any  value  to 
the  public.  He  is  obliged  to  take  the  shortest  cut  to 
his  business,  in  dress  as  in  all  other  things.  He  can 
not  afford  the  time  necessary  to  take  precautions  against 
soiling  his  clothes.  He  does  not  change  them  or  buy 
new  ones  as  often  as  he  ought  to  for  the  same  reason. 


io8  Dress  and  its  Critics. 

But  whatever  be  the  cause  of  the  evil,  we  decidedly 
maintain  that  it  is  not  inherent  in  the  modern  shape 
and  style  of  dress ;  and  we  cannot  join  in  the  condem 
nation  of  that  dress  often  uttered  under  artistic  pre 
tences.  Thus,  it  is  frequently  said  that  our  attire  is 
"  unpicturesque,"  which  really  means  little  more  than 
that  we  are  too  familiar  with  it.  Homer  praised  the 
beauty  of  a  formal  garden  because  the  uncivilization  of 
his  day  made  it  a  rare  object.  The  want  of  color  is  a 
commonly  urged  fault;  but  we  must  remember  that 
grave  tints  for  gentlemen's  wear  are  no  modern  inven 
tion  ;  the  Spaniards  adopted  them  centuries  ago.  One 
strong  objection  to  colored  upper  garments  is  their 
glaring  shabbiness  when  ever  so  little  worn  or  faded  ; 
an  old  claret-colored  coat,  for  instance,  is  ten  times 
seedier  to  view  than  an  old  black  one. 

But,  then,  there  is  no  need  of  men's  wearing  either 
a  claret-colored  coat  or  a  black  one.  The  love  of  black 
broadcloth  is,  perhaps,  that  weakness  of  the  Yankee 
character  which  is  best  known  to  foreigners,  and  has 
afforded  foreign  tourists  most  opportunities  of  making 
little  jokes  in  their  diaries  upon  the  personal  appear 
ance  of  the  American  traveller.  Not  that  there  is  any 
inherent  impropriety  in  wearing  black.  On  the  con 
trary,  there  is,  perhaps,  no  color  so  suitable  to  the  great 
mass  of  men.  In  some  sorts  of  material — velvet,  for 
instance — it  furnishes  the  most  becoming  suit  for  almost 
any  kind  of  wear  ever  devised  by  the  wit  of  tailor.  But 
the  fact  is,  it  is  a  bad  working  or  lounging  color,  the 
worst  that  ever  a  man  amused  himself  or  did  business 


Dress  and  its  Critics.  109 

in.  The  consequence  is  that  it  has  been  discarded  in 
Europe  for  morning  wear,  and  is  now  there  mainly  re 
stricted  to  clergymen,  notaries,  and  tradesmen  in  their 
best  clothes,  and  gentlemen  in  deep  mourning.  A 
person  presenting  himself  at  a  great  London  house  to 
make  a  morning  call  in  a  full  suit  of  black,  would 
probably  be  received  by  the  footman  as  a  person  who 
had  come  to  take  my  lady's  measure  for  a  pair  of  boots  ; 
and  in  Paris  a  flaneur  who  appeared  on  the  Boule 
vards  in  such  melancholy  attire  would  be  set  down 
by  his  friends  as  being  engaged  in  a  "lark"  or  an 
intrigue,  or,  in  fact,  as  having  some  special  reason  for 
disguising  himself. 

This  conventional  prohibition  of  the  color  has,  like 
nearly  every  other  fashion  in  modern  dress — such,  for 
instance,  as  the  low  collars  and  light  cravats  of  our 
day — a  certain  basis  in  common  sense  and  convenience. 
Modern  life  is  not  the  stiff  and  stately  thing  that  it  was 
when  Vandyke  and  Velasquez  painted  noblemen  and 
grandees  in  lace  and  ruffles  and  black  velvet  doublets. 
Men,  even  gentlemen,  are  nowadays  all  actively  engaged 
either  in  business  or  in  pleasure.  They  are  either  hard 
at  work  in  offices,  or  in  the  fields,  or  in  libraries.  They 
flit  about  muddy  streets  on  foot,  ride  in  dirty  hacks,  or 
stand  in  dirtier  cars,  exposed  to  mud,  dust,  tobacco- 
smoke,  and  all  the  other  plagues  of  modern  life.  They 
are  constantly  rubbing  with  back  or  elbows  against 
something.  Consequently  the  grand  requisite  in  their 
clothes  is  that  they  shall  not  soil  easily,  show  the  dust 
readily,  or  wear  out  rapidly.  Black  cloth,  however, 


no  Dress  and  its  Critics. 

grows  seedy-looking  sooner  than  most  other  colors,  and 
shows  stains  sooner,  and  dust  sooner,  and,  therefore, 
has  been  most  wisely  discarded  by  "good  society," 
except  for  evening  dress  and  state  occasions,  when 
dress  is  a  subject  of  great  care  and  a  matter  of  import 
ance.  Through  a  large  portion  of  the  United  States, 
however,  this  distinction  is  unknown,  black  broadcloth 
being  considered  the  proper  thing  to  wear  to  church  • 
at  home  it  is  considered  the  proper  thing  to  wear  on 
all  occasions  when  a  man  wishes  to  appear  "  dressed," 
no  matter  at  what  hour  of  the  day.  Consequently, 
when  the  untravelled  American  goes  to  Europe,  he 
arrays  himself  carefully  in  the  usual  color,  and  appears  at 
all  the  railway  stations  and  hotels  as  black  as  midnight 
At  the  South,  where,  owing  to  the  wild  life  led  by 
most  of  the  population,  one  would  expect  black  to  be 
rarely  seen,  it  is,  or  rather  was  before  the  war — we 
presume  any  color  is  now  welcome — the  color  par 
excellence  which  a  "gentleman"  was  bound  to  wear, 
and,  as  every  white  man  is  ex-qfficio  a  gentleman,  every 
body  who  could  afford  it  wore  black,  the  other  colors 
being  left  somewhat  scornfully  to  stage-drivers  and  the 
like.  Every  keeper  of  a  wretched  tavern  in  the  South 
west  did  his  best  to  dawn  on  his  guests  every  morning 
in  a  full  suit  of  black,  and  patent-leather  boots,  and 
many  a  Northern  traveller  will  remember  being  con 
signed  to  the  state-room  over  the  boiler  on  a  Missis 
sippi  steamboat,  owing  to  the  shabby  appearance  which 
he  presented  in  a  good  suit  of  travelling  gray  to  the 
"polite  and  gentlemanly  clerk,"  who  sat  behind  the 


Dress  and  its  Critics.  in 

window  black  as  a  crow,  but  resplendent  with  diamonds. 
The  fact  is,  that  as  there  is  no  country  in  which  there 
is  so  much  work  and  so  much  travelling  done  as  in 
this,  in  which  men's  lives  are  so  intensely  active,  there 
is  none  in  which  black  broadcloth  as  an  everyday  dress 
should  be  more  carefully  avoided  by  everybody  who 
does  not  wish  to  look  both  dirty  and  shabby.  The 
same  remark  applies  to  patent-leather  boots  and  pru 
nella  boots  with  patent-leather  toes,  to  which  third-rate 
"swells,"  and,  for  some  inscrutable  reason,  young 
farmers,  most  of  whose  time  is  passed  in  muddy  or 
dusty  fields  or  roads,  are  greatly  addicted. 

Long  hair  is  another  piece  of  personal  ornamenta 
tion  which,  in  old  countries,  is  being  gradually  laid 
aside  by  the  class  which  devotes  most  attention  to 
personal  appearance.  And  yet  amongst  us  those  who, 
being  least  able  to  take  care  of  their  hair,  are  least 
entitled  to  wear  it  long,  are  the  very  men  who  cling 
most  tenaciously  to  it.  It  may  be  laid  down  as  a  gen 
eral  rule,  with  regard  to  all  matters  of  dress,  that  a 
man's  first  duty  is  to  be  clean,  and  to  look  neat. 
Therefore,  if  he  insists  on  having  ringlets  down  on  his 
shoulders,  he  ought  either  keep  them  clean  himself  or 
have  a  valet  to  do  it,  or  ought  not  to  expose  them  to 
the  dust  and  dirt  of  everyday  life.  Moreover,  if  he 
considers  it  his  duty  to  grease  them  every  day,  he  ought 
not  to  let  them  lie  on  the  collar  of  his  coat,  as  the  shiny 
appearance  assumed  by  woollen  cloth  after  repeated 
applications  of  pomatum  is  not  pleasing,  to  say  the 
least.  By  soldiers  and  men  actively  engaged  during 


112  Dress  and  its  Critics. 

the  day,  with  any  real  love  of  work  and  any  real  dis 
like  of  dirt,  the  scissors  ought  to  be  unsparingly  applied 
to  their  "  luxuriant  locks,"  so  that  a  brush  and  a  sponge 
will  keep  them  in  order.  In  other  words,  we,  as  a 
nation,  ought  to  be  as  remarkable  for  the  shortness  of 
our  hair  as  we  are  for  its  length. 

Timothy  Titcomb,  in  one  of  the  bits  of  advice  which 
he  gives  to  young  men,  lays  it  down  somewhere,  that 
there  should  be  in  every  man's  dress  some  central 
point,  from  which  everything  else  should  radiate,  and 
this  point  he  declares  to  be  the  shirt-front,  which  he 
would,  doubtless,  have  of  expansive  dimensions  and 
snowy  whiteness.  But  in  this  Timothy  must  have 
spoken  without  due  consideration.  Snowy  linen  and 
plenty  of  it  is  a  pleasing  spectacle,  but  it  is  a  species 
of  display  in  which  nobody  should  indulge  who  has  not 
time  enough  or  money  enough  to  change  very  fre 
quently,  or  whose  occupation  is  of  a  nature  to  soil  or 
ruffle  his  shirt-front  rapidly.  And  yet,  in  this  matter, 
as  in  the  matter  of  hair,  we  are  apt  to  find  that  those 
who  can  bestow  least  attention  on  their  shirt-fronts  are 
the  very  men  who  make  most  show  of  them.  No  class, 
probably,  wear  so  few  buttons  in  their  waistcoats  as 
street-car  conductors.  The  fact  is  that  workers  should 
button  well  up,  and  if  they  show  any  more  linen  than 
their  shirt-collars,  they  should  show  only  as  much  as 
they  can  fairly  protect  from  being  soiled.  The  whole 
question  of  modern  dress  is  in  fact,  or  ought  to  be, 
determined  by  the  exigencies  of  modern  life.  In  this, 
as  in  other  things,  we  are  growing  daily  more  practical. 


THE  SOCIAL  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  NATIONAL 
DEBT. 


SENATOR  SHERMAN,  in  a  recent  speech,  alluded  some 
what  indistinctly  to  one  or  two  probable,  or  perhaps 
we  should  rather  say  possible  consequences  of  the  na 
tional  debt,  which  are  worthy  of  more  attention  than 
they  have  received.  There  is  very  little  doubt  that  the 
effect  upon  society  in  this  country  of  the  means  which 
the  debt  supplies  of  making  sure  investments,  will,  in 
the  course  of  a  generation,  should  it  not  have  been 
paid  off  by  that  time,  be  very  marked. 

The  difficulty  with  which  every  observer  of  Ameri 
can  society  is  familiar,  of  keeping  large,  or  even  small 
fortunes  together  for  any  great  length  of  time,  in  the 
hands  of  one  family,  is  usually  ascribed  to  the  influence 
upon  the  minds  of  testators,  of  our  laws  of  descent 
and  distribution,  or  of  the  democratic  atmosphere  in 
which  everybody  lives.  The  fact  is,  however,  that  the 
liberty  of  bequest  is  as  great  in  England  as  it  is  here, 
and  the  power  of  entail  in  many  of  the  States — New 
York  for  one — is  almost  as  great 

In  England,  the  law  of  primogeniture,  which  is  pop 
ularly  supposed  to  be  the  foundation  on  which  the  aristoc- 


H4       The  Social  Influence  of  the  National  Debt. 

racy  rests,  in  reality  only  operates  in  case  of  intestacy. 
In  the  absence  of  a  family  settlement,  a  testator  might 
cut  his  estate  up  into  as  many  parts  as  he  had  children. 
What  really  gives  the  eldest  son  the  preference  in  the' 
transmission  of  landed  property  is  not  the  law,  but 
the  feeling  of  the  class.  Almost  every  marriage  settle 
ment-entails  the  estate  strictly  on  the  eldest  son  to  be 
born  of  the  union,  and  when  he  comes  of  age  he  almost 
invariably  joins  his  father  in  executing  another  entail, 
handing  it  down  to  his  own  eldest  son,  and  so  on  from 
generation  to  generation,  the  younger  children  acquies 
cing  in  the  arrangement  with  a  cheerfulness  which  is  a 
wonderful  illustration  of  the  strength  of  aristocratic  feel 
ing,  and  the  solid  satisfaction  which  people  bred  in  an 
aristocratic  society  take  in  belonging  to  a  great  house. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  law  to  prevent  a  man  desir 
ous  of  "  founding  a  family  "  here  from  doing  the  same 
thing.  The  obstacles  to  it  are  to  be  found  not  in  the 
statutes,  but  in  the  public  sentiment,  which  would  visit 
anything  of  the  kind  with  reprobation,  and  in  the  feel 
ing  of  the  children,  who  would  consider  any  such  dis 
play  of  preference  for  the  eldest  son  a  piece  of  injustice 
to  themselves.  The  cases  in  which  a  man  dies  intes 
tate,  and  leaves  it  to  the  law  to  divide  his  estate,  are 
too  few  in  number  to  exercise  much  influence  on  the 
general  distribution  of  property.  Nor  can  the  facility 
and  rapidity  with  which  the  accumulations  of  one  gen 
eration  are  usually  scattered  in  the  next,  be  ascribed 
altogether  to  the  practice  of  dividing  fortunes  among 
one's  children.  This  practice  prevails  in  many  coun- 


The  Social  Influence  of  the  National  Debt.       115 

tries,  Holland  and  France,  for  instance,  without  causing 
fortunes  to  pass  out  of  the  hands  of  the  families.  There 
are  various  ways  well  known  to  lovers  of  money  of  keep 
ing  a  fortune  amongst  persons  of  the  same  blood,  for 
many  generations  in  succession,  without  marking  out 
any  one  individual  for  an  undue  share  of  it,  such  as  in 
termarriages,  business  partnerships,  etc.  In  Holland 
and  in  Switzerland,  large  properties  have  in  this  way 
been  transmitted  in  the  same  line  for  two  or  three  hun 
dred  years  without  much  if  any  diminution,  often  with 
considerable  increase. 

In  the  United  States,  however,  the  cases,  as  every 
body  knows,  are  rare  in  which  the  grandson  of  a 
wealthy  man  is  found  in  possession  of  much  of  the  an 
cestral  fortune.  The  largest  fortunes  are  dissipated  in 
side  fifty  years,  leaving  the  descendants  of  those  who 
built  them  up  to  begin  life  as  their  ancestors  did,  and 
go  through  the  tug  and  struggle  over  again.  How  few 
families  in  any  of  the  States  that  were  rich  at  the  beginning 
of  the  present  century  can  now  show  much  evidence  of 
their  former  splendor  !  In  fact,  there  are  probably 
more  vicissitudes  of  fortune  crowded  into  half  a  century 
in  the  history  of  any  prominent  American  family,  than 
into  that  of  any  great  house  in  Europe  in  a  century  and 
a  half. 

Now  there  is  very  little  question  that  though  much 
of  this  is  due  to  the  practice,  enforced  by  public  opin 
ion  as  well  as  by  family  feeling,  of  dividing  properties 
on  the  death  of  the  owners,  a  still  larger  portion  of  it  is 
due  to  the  uncertain  and  precarious  character  of  the 


1 1 6       The  Social  Influence  of  the  National  Debt. 

modes  of  investment  to  which  executors,  administrators, 
and  heirs  have  hitherto  been  compelled  to  resort.  Not 
only  does  it  require  great  skill  and  shrewdness,  greater 
than  most  men  possess,  to  invest  money  in  such  a  way 
as  to  secure  any  return,  but  even  in  such  a  way  as  to 
prevent  total  loss.  This  is  a  difficulty  which  is  of 
course  encountered  in  every  country  ;  but  there  is  in 
this  country  an  additional  and  very  formidable  difficulty 
created  by  the  rapidity  of  its  growth,  the  sudden  and 
•wonderful  changes  which  take  place  in  the  distribution 
of  population,  in  the  nature  and  location  of  particular 
branches  of  industry,  and  of  the  great  seats  of  com 
merce.  Many  of  the  great  seaports  of  thirty  or  forty 
years  ago  are  now  well-nigh  deserted.  Regions  that  at 
the  same  period  were  wholly  agricultural  are  now  wholly 
manufacturing;  places  that  then  were  forest-covered 
are  now  the  sites  of  great  cities  ;  lines  of  travel  then 
much  frequented  are  now  totally  abandoned ;  inven 
tions  that  were  then  very  valuable  have  since  been  su 
perseded  by  others  and  are  now  worthless.  And  this 
process  is  constantly  going  on  all  over  the  Union. 
Even  in  the  same  city,  the  value  of  property  in  particu 
lar  quarters  changes  greatly  inside  ten  or  even  five  years. 
Capital,  too,  deserts  one  locality  to  settle  in  another, 
attracted  by  the  discovery  of  peculiar  natural  advan 
tages. 

The  effect  of  these  changes  on  investments  could 
be  readily  imagined,  even  if  it  were  not  seen.  In 
vestments  which  to-day  seem  most  prudent  and  for 
tunate,  may  turn  out  in  ten  years  fatal  mistakes,  owing 


The  Social  Influence  of  the  National  Debt.       117 

to  causes  which  the  shrewdest  calculator  could  neither 
foresee  nor  prepare  for.  This  is  a  danger  against 
which  no  provisions  in  a  will,  however  stringent,  can 
furnish  any  adequate  security;  for  unless  money  can 
be  invested  in  landed  estates  rented  to  farmers,  or  in 
government  stocks,  as  in  England,  much  must  be  left 
to  the  judgment  of  trustees,  or  even,  if  nothing  is  left 
to  their  judgment,  much  must  be  left  to  the  course  of 
events. 

Our  national  debt,  if  it  remains  in  existence  long 
enough,  will  furnish  a  means  of  investment  which  will 
not  be  affected  either  by  the  fluctuations  in  the  value 
of  property  or  in  the  course  of  trade,  let  them  be  ever 
so  violent.  The  interest  on  it  will  be  paid  in  coin,  no 
matter  what  convulsions  may  occur  in  the  commercial 
world,  or  what  changes  may  occur  in  the  distribution 
of  population  or  capital.  So  that  a  family  which  was 
determined  to  keep  what  it  had  got,  and  was  not 
anxious  to  get  more,  would  find  in  it  an  easy  means  of 
transmitting  a  large  estate  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion  with  little  or  no  risk,  trouble  or  anxiety. 

Some  of  the  consequences  of  this  might  be  very 
important,  socially  if  not  politically.  It  might  create 
and  perpetuate  a  class,  possessing  secured  wealth  and 
fixed  social  tastes  and  habits,  which  would  gradually 
grow  in  influence  and  size  as  the  wealth  of  the  country 
increased,  by  gathering  to  itself  the  sons  of  all  the 
"new  men,"  and  might  at  last  form  in  each  State  a 
sort  of  aristocracy.  Whether  such  a  class  could  under 
our  institutions  secure  any  political  influence  is  doubt- 


1 1 8       The  Social  Influence  of  the  National  Debt. 

ful ;  but  that  it  would  secure  a  large  amount  of  social 
influence  there  is  little  question ;  and  though  in  many 
ways  class  feeling  is  highly  objectionable,  there  are 
some  ways  in  which  a  class  of  this  kind  would  render 
considerable  service  to  American  society.  It  would 
create  and  keep  up  a  more  correct  taste  in  art  and 
literature  by  giving  large  numbers  of  educated  persons 
time  and  means  for  their  cultivation ;  and  it  would  com 
municate  greater  fixity  to  habits,  modes  of  thoughts, 
and  social  usages. 

But  to  calculate  all  the  consequences  that  might 
flow  from  its  existence  would  force  us  on  a  wider  field 
of  speculation  than  we  have  time  or  space  to  enter 
upon.  The  subject  is  an  interesting  one,  and  well 
worthy  of  discussion. 


HINTS  FOR   FOURTH   OF  JULY  ORATIONS. 


THE  quality  of  American  contributions  to  literature 
and  science  has  been,  on  the  average,  low,  and  their 
quantity  has  been  small.  The  annual  literary  and 
scientific  product  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  is 
not  the  twentieth  part  of  that  of  any  other  civilized 
people.  We  read  voraciously,  but  the  bulk  of  our  read 
ing  is  of  foreign  origin.  This  is  as  true  of  our  periodi 
cal  publications  in  all  departments  of  science  and 
literature  as  of  the  books  we  consume.  Reprinted  or 
translated  books  and  articles  constitute  ninety-nine 
hundredths  of  our  reading  matter.  This  aspect  of  our 
national  life  is  humiliating,  and  has  often  suggested  to 
sceptical  minds,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  certain 
curious  doubts  concerning  the  effect  on  literature  and 
science  of  a  state  of  society  in  which  there  are  neither 
depths  nor  heights,  but  only  one  common  level. 

Acknowledging  our  inferiority  in  this  regard,  and 
leaving  it  to  the  future  to  demonstrate  the  real  in 
fluence  of  republican  institutions  upon  science  and 
letters,  we  may  find  a  full  well-spring  of  consolation 
and  hope  in  recalling  the  wonderful  applications  of 


120          Hints  for  Fourth  of  July  Orations. 

science  and  the  inventions  of  fundamental  importance 
which  the  world  owes  to  Americans  of  this  generation. 
We  do  not  now  refer  to  the  innumerable  ingenious  de 
vices  for  economizing  time  and  labor  which  form  a  very 
characteristic  product  of  the  Yankee  mind ;  we  pro 
pose  to  enumerate  only  those  really  great  inventions 
which  are  of  universal  application,  and  which  are  every 
where  recognized  as  American. 

First  upon  this  catalogue  shall  be  named  the  prac 
tical  use  of  anaesthetic  agents.  In  the  whole  history 
of  medicine  and  surgery  there  are  but  two  or  three  dis 
coveries  which  can  take  rank  with  this.  Vaccination 
is  the  best  parallel.  The  property  possessed  by  ether 
and  divers  other  substances  of  producing  insensibility 
had  been  known  to  a  few  isolated  philosophers  for 
some  time,  though  this  property  was  undoubtedly  re 
discovered  in  this  country.  Neither  was  the  idea  of 
applying  these  agents  to  the  relief  of  pain  a  new  one. 
Ether  itself  had  been  before  recommended  for  this  very 
use.  Americans  demonstrated  that  ether  could  be 
safely  admininistered  in  quantity  sufficient  to  produce 
complete  unconsciousness  during  many  minutes,  and 
that  no  evil  effects  whatever  followed  a  prolonged  in 
halation  of  the  vapor.  American  audacity  and  perse 
verance  changed  what  had  been  only  a  scientific  sug 
gestion,  an  ingenious  idea,  into  a  .practical  and  most 
beneficent  reality.  Who  can  conceive  of  the  infinite 
load  of  misery  which  this  invention  has  lightened  !  It 
is  not  only  that  it  delivers  poor  human  nature  from  the 
actual  pain  of  the  knife  and  saw,  from  the  pangs  of 


Hints  for  Fourth  of  July  Orations.  121 

child-birth,  and  the  physical  agonies  of  death — it  de 
livers  also  from  the  horror  of  anticipated  pain.  The 
discovery  will  always  remain  one  of  the  chief  glories 
of  this  generation. 

The  vast  extent  of  our  Western  wheat-fields  and 
the  high  price  of  labor  in  our  sparsely  settled  territory 
guaranteed  a  rich  reward  for  all  successful  applica 
tions  of  machinery  to  agriculture.  The  actual  introduc 
tion  of  horse-reapers  is  an  American  achievement,  and 
one  of  the  first  importance  not  only  to  America,  but  to 
every  other  country  in  which  agriculture  is  carried  on 
upon  a  large  scale.  Accordingly,  we  find  that  the 
American  reapers  have  been  copied,  modified  to  meet 
varying  conditions,  and  not  seldom  spoilt,  by  the 
mechanics  and  agricultural  engineers  of  all  the  nations 
of  Europe.  With  the  reapers  should  be  mentioned  the 
sowing,  raking,  hulling,  and  threshing  machines, 
which  play  so  important  a  part  in  American  farming. 
Agricultural  work  is  the  simplest  and  coarsest  of  all 
forms  of  labor,  and  yet  must  be  the  occupation  of  the 
vast  majority  of  the  people.  The  inventions  which  de 
mand  more  skill  from  the  farmer,  which  increase  his 
head-work  and  diminish  his  hand-work,  which  relieve 
his  muscles  but  exercise  his  mind,  do  much  to  elevate 
and  educate  the  class  which  must  always  constitute  the 
great  bulk  of  the  nation.  They  strengthen  the  repub 
lic. 

Another  purely  American  invention  of  the  first  im 
portance  is  the  sewing-machine.  This  very  recent  in 
vention  has  already  increased  tenfold  the  potential  pro- 


122          Hints  for  Fourth  of  July  Orations. 

duction  of  every  trade  which  uses  a  needle,  and  has 
emancipated  American  women  from  that  never-ending 
toil  with  the  needle  which  still  oppresses  all  but  the 
richest  and  the  poorest  of  other  lands.  It  is  by  no 
means  possible  to  predict,  as  yet,  the  full  effect  of  this 
wonderful  invention,  but  we  may  be  sure  that  twenty 
years  hence  hand-sewing  will  be  as  curious  a  sight  as 
is  now  hand-spinning,  and  that  the  next  generation 
will  no  more  use  hand-made  garments  than  we  use 
wheat  flour  ground  between  two  stones  after  the  man 
ner  of  the  Pompeians.  We  see  the  Italian  women  to 
day  using  precisely  the  same  distaff  with  which  the 
Three  Sisters  spun  their  fateful  thread.  The  Ameri 
can  women  of  this  generation  have  seen  the  beginning 
of  a  change  the  like  of  which  has  not  come  upon 
humanity  in  thousands  of  years — a  change  which  is  to 
affect  deeply  the  domestic  habits  and  social  customs 
of  the  race.  This  great  revolution  dates  from  the  in 
vention  of  the  American  sewing-machine. 

A  complicated  machine,  like  a  reaper  or  sewing- 
machine,  embodies  generally,  with  the  one  idea  which 
is  new,  a  number  of  ideas  which  have  become  the  com 
mon  property  of  mankind.  The  needle  with  the  eye  in 
the  point  was  new,  but  the  treadle,  the  wheels  of  dif 
ferent  diameters,  the  cam,  and  the  shuttle  were  but 
applications  of  others'  thoughts  become  common  prop 
erty.  Not  so  with  the  next  discovery  on  this  remark 
able  list.  When  melted  rubber  cools  it  remains  so  soft 
and  sticky  as  to  be  incapable  of  any  useful  application. 
Owing  nothing  to  science,  borrowing  no  hint  from  the 


Hints  for  Fourth  of  July  Orations.  123 

experience  of  others,  an  American  was  found  patient 
enough,  and,  let  it  be  added,  reckless  and  improvident 
enough,  to  spend  the  better  part  of  a  lifetime  in  mixing 
one  substance  after  another  with  hot  rubber,  until  at 
last,  after  many  years  of  purely  empirical  seeking,  he 
found  a  substance  which,  when  melted  with  rubber, 
yielded  a  plastic  and  adhesive  mixture  that  on  cooling 
lost  its  stickiness,  but  retained  its  elasticity  and  tough 
ness.  The  so-called  vulcanized  india-rubber  is  a  mix 
ture  of  sulphur  and  rubber,  in  proportions  which  vary 
according  to  the  use  to  be  made  of  the  product.  This 
useful  substance  is  now  known  and  used  the  world  over, 
though  it  is  not  everywhere  recognized  as  an  American 
invention.  Its  applications  are  almost  infinitely  various ; 
there  is  hardly  an  art  or  trade  in  which  its  elasticity, 
plasticity,  toughness,  or  water-proof  quality  has  not 
found  useful  application.  The  mechanic,  the  mariner, 
the  physician,  the  chemist,  the  house-wife  are  all  deeply 
indebted  to  its  admirable  qualities. 

Since  the  steam-engine  no  invention  has  had  such 
power  for  good  and  evil  as  the  electric  telegraph. 
America  had  not  much  to  do  with  the  accumulation  of  the 
scientific  knowledge  which  made  the  telegraph  possible. 
Our  acquaintance  with  the  principles  of  electricity  and 
magnetism  was  the  slow  growth  of  several  generations  ; 
the  history  of  the  development  of  the  scientific  princi 
ples,  and  of  the  invention  of  the  philosophical  instru 
ments,  which  were  necessary  to  the  telegraph,  makes 
distinguished  mention  of  but  one  American  name,  a 
name  still  held  in  high  honor  among  those  of  the  most 


124          Hints  for  Fourth  of  J 'uly  Orations. 

eminent  living  scientists.  The  idea  of  the  telegraph 
had  been  entertained  by  many  minds — little  telegraphs 
had  been  actually  constructed  and  worked  as  scientific 
toys  or  curious  experiments — but  it  was  reserved  for 
American  sagacity  and  enterprise  to  put  in  practice 
upon  a  large  scale  the  accumulated  knowledge  on  the 
subject,  to  realize  the  importance  of  the  revolution  a 
practical  telegraph  would  work,  and  to  make  a  mechan 
ical  and  commercial  success  of  what  had  before  been 
a  scientific  curiosity,  a  philosophical  plaything.  It  is 
this  actual  realization  of  an  idea  perhaps  not  new,  this 
demonstration  of  value  and  power,  which  is  often  the 
chiefest  part  of  a  great  invention.  The  science  involv 
ed  in  the  telegraph  was  chiefly  European  ;  the  idea  of 
the  telegraph  was  not  ours,  but  the  practical  applica 
tion  of  the  science  and  actual  realization  of  the  idea 
were  purely  American.  The  steam-engine  and  the 
telegraph  are  political  powers — they  make  the  Amer 
ican  Union  possible.  Boston  and  Philadelphia  were 
as  far  apart  eighty  years  ago  as  New  York  and  San 
Francisco  now. 

These  great  agencies,  steam  and  electricity,  created 
a  new  want,  and  made  necessary  a  supplementary  in 
vention.  Why  get  news  hot  from  the  event,  why  send 
the  newspaper  by  steam  over  the  face  of  the  country, 
if  it  must  take  a  week  to  print  a  daily  paper  ?  The 
cylinder-press,  which  strikes  a  thousand  copies  an 
hour,  was  a  fit  gift  to  the  world  from  the  land  which 
introduced  the  telegraph.  American  cylinder  printing- 
presses  are  used  throughout  the  civilized  world,  wher- 


Hints  for  Fourth  of  July  Orations.  125 

ever  large  communities  consume  the  daily  newspapers 
by  tens  of  thousands.  This  invention  was  not  the 
result  of  a  single  brilliant  conception,  not  the  embodi 
ment  of  a  sudden  inspiration,  but  rather  the  result  of 
patiently  combining  and  improving  ideas  and  methods 
not  absolutely  new,  but  new  in  combination.  It  is  not 
the  less  on  this  account  a  great  contribution  to  the 
resources  of  modern  communities. 

We  close  this  catalogue  with  the  mention  of  an 
invention  which  has  justly  reflected  great  honor  upon 
the  American  name  in  Europe,  and  which  is  truly 
touching  in  contrast  with  the  brilliant  successes  which 
we  have  already  enumerated.  Most  of  the  apparatus 
by  which  the  blind  are  taught  is  of  American  inven 
tion.  The  whole  system  of  printing  for  the  blind,  the 
peculiar  types,  paper,  and  presses  employed,  the  maps, 
globes,  and  slates  which  are  used,  both  in  this  country 
and  in  Europe,  are  the  product  of  the  patient  study  and 
devoted  skill  of  an  American  inventor.  It  is  not  many 
years  since  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society 
caused  their  Bible  for  the  blind  to  be  printed  at  South 
Boston,  Massachusetts.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  in 
genuity  exhibited  in  designing  and  executing  the  me 
chanical  contrivances  by  which  touch  is  made  to  do  the 
work  of  sight  in  conveying  knowledge.  We  have 
adduced  this  beautiful  series  of  inventions  to  illustrate 
the  fact  that  American  inventors  have  not  only  worked 
successfully  for  the  bustling,  laborious,  active  world, 
not  only  for  fame  and  money,  but  also  in  behalf  of  the 
suffering  blind,  who,  lacking  a  sense,  have  fared  hardly, 


126          Hints  for  Fourth  of  July  Orations, 

these  thousands  of  years,  in  the  struggle  for  life,  and 
only  in  this  generation  have  been  able  to  enjoy  some 
thing  like  the  same  opportunities  of  intellectual  and  spir 
itual  instruction  which  those  who  have  sight  enjoy.  It 
is  fitting  that  the  name  of  the  inventor  of  this  appara 
tus  of  instruction  for  the  blind  should  be  quite  unknown 
to  the  public,  and  that  he  should  have  had  no  reward 
but  that  of  the  consciousness  of  having  made  many 
happy. 

The  greatest  of  American  inventions  must  not  pass 
unmentioned — our  political  institutions,  the  product  of 
the  common  sense  and  practical  Christianity  of  a  peo 
ple  who  have  been  free  for  many  generations.  Our 
contributions  to  political  science  bid  fair  to  prove  of 
enormous  value,  but  of  course  until  other  nations  have 
more  fully  reaped  the  benefit  of  them  we  shall  not 
receive  for  them  the  meed  of  honor  which  will  one  day 
be  awarded  us.  Most  foreign  nations  still  look  on  our 
political  system  with  the  doubt  and  suspicion  which 
usually  greet  untried  inventions. 


AMERICAN  REPUTATIONS  IN  ENGLAND. 


CHARLES  LAMB  once  wrote  to  his  friend  Manning, 
who  was  travelling  abroad  :  "  It  appears  to  me  as  if  I 
should  die  with  joy  at  the  first  landing  in  a  foreign 
country.  It  is  the  nearest  pleasure  which  a  grown  man 
can  substitute  for  that  unknown  one,  which  he  can 
never  know,  the  pleasure  of  the  first  entrance  into  life 
from  the  womb."  Without  stopping  to  discuss  this  fan 
tastic,  Charles-Lamb-like  reference  to  a  pleasure 
which  we  "  can  never  know  "  for  the  very  good  reason 
that  it  never  existed,  there  is  a  certain  analogy  between 
the  facts  of  being  born  into  the  world  and  of  being  born 
into  a  foreign  country.  In  either  case,  the  man  plants 
his  foot  on  the  strange  shore  to  find  nearly  every  appeal 
to  his  five  senses  wondrously  novel,  startling,  amusing ; 
and  the  newly  arrived  traveller,  like  the  newly  arrived 
child,  stares  and  listens,  and  puts  out  his  hands  at  the 
most  insignificant  objects.  But  more  impressive  to  the 
new  comer  than  merely  external  innovations  is  this 


128  American  Reputations  in  England. 

realm  of  new  ideas,  new  maxims,  new  whims,  new  pre 
judices,  new  reputations,  into  which  he  is  introduced, 
with  the  inevitable  obliteration  of  so  many  of  those 
which  he  has  just  emigrated  from.  To  an  American 
coming  to  England,  perhaps  nothing  gives  a  greater 
spiritual  jar,  nothing  more  startles  him  into  realizing 
that  he  is  actually  abroad,  than  the  discovery,  constant 
ly  breaking  upon  him  during  the  first  weeks  of  his  resi 
dence  here,  that,  when  he  sailed  away  from  America, 
he  did  indeed  sail  away  from  a  whole  hemisphere  of 
personal  authorities  and  reputations — from  the  princi 
palities  and  powers  of  the  literary,  political,  religious, 
and  social  world  before  which  he  had  loyally  bowed 
from  his  youth  up.  I  think  that,  to  any  man,  it  would 
give  at  least  a  momentary  shock  to  find,  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life,  his  references  to  illustrious  names  not 
understood,  to  august  authorities  not  regarded,  the  titu 
lar  dignitaries  of  his  native  chess-board  not  responded 
to  with  deference  or  even  with  recognition. 

As  a  matter  of  testimony  upon  this  subject,  perhaps 
I  may  be  allowed  to  refer  to  some  of  my  own  experi 
ences  during  a  residence  in  England  now  extending 
over  nearly  three  years.  I  well  remember  the  first  de 
cided  shock  of  this  kind  which  I  received.  It  was  my 
second  Sunday  in  England,  and  I  was  spending  a  part 
of  the  day  at  the  house  of  a  literary  man  whose  name 
(if  I  should  mention  it,  which-  I  shall  not)  would  be 
recognized  as  a  household  word  wherever  the  English 
language  is  spoken.  I  was  showing  to  him  and  to  a 
little  circle  of  his  friends  my  photograph  album  of 


American  Reputations  in  England.  129 

American  celebrities  j  and  when  we  came  to  a  certain 
face,  they  said,  "  Who  is  that  ? "  I  replied,  "  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes."  "Who  is  he?"  "Why,  Dr.  Holmes 
— did  you  never  hear  of  him  ? "  "  Never !  "  I  con 
fess  that  then,  for  the  first  time,  I  felt  a  little  homesick. 
That  word  gave  me,  indeed,  a  sense  of  being  "  abroad" 
Before  me,  then,  yawned  the  dreary  distance  from  that 
dear  spot  which  "  there  is  no  place  like,"  with  a  vivid 
ness  more  painful  than  I  had  derived  from  all  the  three 
thousand  farewells  of  the  Atlantic,  with  all  the  taunts 
and  jeers  flung  at  us  by  "  the  countless  laughter  of  its 
salt  sea  waves."  Since  then  that  particular  reputation 
has  grown  very  rapidly  in  England  ;  and,  of  course, 
even  then  there  were  here  multitudes  of  the  readers 
and  admirers  of  the  autocratic-poet ;  but  it  was  simply 
staggering  to  find  men  and  women,  eminent  in  English 
literature,  too,  who  did  not  remember  to  have  heard 
the  name  of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes ! 

M.  D.  Conway  told  me  that  he  talked  with  a  poor 
man  in  Venice  who,  he  ascertained,  had  no  knowledge 
of  Daniel  Webster,  but  was  acquainted  with  the  name 
and  deeds  of  old  John  Brown.  So  I  have  found  in  Eng 
land  that,  among  the  mass  of  the  people — among  those, 
for  example,  who  make  up  a  lecturer's  audience  at  the 
literary  and  mechanics'  institutes  of  the  country — any 
reference  to  our  great  statesmen,  jurists,  and  scholars 
of  the  time  just  gone — to  Andrew  Jackson,  Webster, 
Clay,  Story,  Choate,  Felton,  requires  explanation,  while 
the  mention  of  the  names  of  philanthropists  and  reform 
ers,  especially  of  Garrison  and  Phillips,  is  generally 
0* 


130          American  Reputations  in  England. 

caught  up  with  instant  appreciation  and  responded  to 
with  enthusiasm. 

I  appeal  to  any  American  who  has  grown  up  under 
the  omnipresence  and  majesty  of  Daniel  Webster's  re 
nown,  if  he  would  not  have  been  punctured  by  a  new 
sensation  had  he  gone  through  the  following  bit  of  ex 
perience.  Just  before  Christmas,  a  year  ago,  I  arrived, 
at  the  close  of  the  day,  in  that  noble  old  town  on  the 
south  coast  of  England  where  our  Pilgrim  Fathers  bade 
their  last  adieus  to  the  cruel  yet  still  beloved  mother 
who  cast  them  forth.  I  went  to  a  quiet  inn,  was  usher 
ed  into  the  coffee-room,  and,  while  waiting  for  dinner, 
in  the  twilight,  I  thought  I  saw  hanging  upon  the  op 
posite  wall  a  portrait,  of  life-size  and  done  in  oil,  of 
Daniel  Webster.  It  gave  me  a  strange  feeling  full  of 
pleasure,  like  hearing  some  familiar  air  of  home,  like 
seeing  some  well-known  living  face.  I  thought  I  must 
be  mistaken,  but,  on  rushing  across  the  room,  I  found 
it  was,  indeed,  a  fine  portrait  of  the  great  Daniel  him 
self.  Wondering  how  such  a  thing  could  have  found 
its  way  into  this  quiet  nook  in  one  corner  of  England, 
when  the  waiter  came  in — a  portly  gentleman,  dignified 
as  a  chief-justice  or  one  of  the  apostolic  fathers — I  ask 
ed  him  of  whom  that  was  the  portrait.  After  some 
hesitation  he  said,  "  Ah,  sir,  I  think  I  have  heard  mas 
ter  say  it  was  some  American  gentleman  or  other.  I 
will  ask  master,  sir,  if  you  wish."  When  he  next  enter 
ed  he  said  :  "  I  have  asked  master,  sir  •  he  does  n't  ex 
actly  remember  the  gentleman's  name ;  he  bought  the 
picture  at  a  sale  ;  he  thinks  it  is  some  American  gentle- 


American  Reputations  in  England.  131 

man  or  other."  And  that  is  Fame — an  old  lady  who 
shudders  at  the  Atlantic  voyage.  In  the  young  Ply 
mouth  what  an  august  personage  would  have  been 
evoked  before  every  eye  by  that  portrait !  Just  across 
the  water,  at  the  old  Plymouth,  it  is  merely  the  head  of 
"  some  American  gentleman  or  other." 

We  all  find  here  a  perpetual  source  of  amusement 
in  the  very  mixed  apprehensions  people  have  of  the  two 
most  celebrated  members  of  the  Beecher  family.  Every 
body  knows  Mrs.  Stowe,  and  calls  her  Mrs.  Beecher- 
Stowe.  Everybody  knows  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  and 
nearly  everybody  calls  him  Mr.  Beecher-Stowe.  There 
is  a  confused  idea  of  some  very  near  relationship  be 
tween  these  individuals.  It  is  generally  stated  that 
she  is  his  wife,  sometimes  his  daughter,  occasionally 
his  mother,  seldom — what  she  is.  I  do  not  exaggerate 
in  saying  that,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  Henry  Ward 
Beecher's  name  is  by  Englishmen  enriched  with  the 
pleasing  suffix  of  Stowe.  Yet,  a  few  weeks  ago,  the 
Times,  in  whose  eyes  he  is  of  course  a  peculiarly  en 
deared  person,  took  quite  the  opposite  tack  and  got 
the  cart  completely  before  the  horse  by  speaking  of 
him  as  Mr.  Beecher  Ward  ! 

Excluding,  in  these  remarks,  the  small  minority  of 
English  people  who  are  really  acquainted  with  our  his 
tory  and  literature,  in  travelling  up  and  down  England 
I  seldom  meet  with  any  one  who  has  heard  of  George 
W.  Curtis,  Dr.  Holland,  John  G.  Saxe,  Col.  Higginson, 
Gail  Hamilton,  Bayard  Taylor,  Tuckerman,  and  Thomas 
B.  Aldrich,  whom  we  know  so  well,  but  whose  names  pro- 


132  American  Reputations  in  England. 

nounced  before  a  general  English  audience  would  be  no 
more  recognized  than  the  names  of  so  many  under-sec- 
retaries  of  the  Tycoon.     It  is  true  that  the  books  of 
some  of  them  have  had  a  considerable  sale  in  England ; 
but,  in  the  first  place,  there  is  a  large  population  of  res 
ident  Americans  here,  who  try  to  keep  up  an  acquaint 
ance  with  their  country's  authors ;  and,  in  the  next 
place,  there  are  a  certain  few  English  men  and  women 
who  get  and  study  all  our  best  books  as  they  appear. 
Upon  the  vast  bulk  of  the  population  such  names  as 
these  have  yet  made  no  impression.     Here  and  there 
their  books  are  to  be  found ;  but  such  casual  and  sporad 
ic  circulation  does  not  make  fame  or  even  reputation. 
The  supreme  American  literary  reputation  in  England 
is  that  of  Longfellow.     His  renown  has  diffused  itself 
into  every  household  ;  his  poems  are  in  every  drawing- 
room  ;  he  has  more  readers  than  any  living  English 
poet.     His  is  the  one  only  American  literary  name  that 
may  be  mentioned  in  all  companies  with  as  much  cer 
tainty  of  recognition  as  the  name  of  Shakespeare,  though 
even  with  Shakespeare's  name  it  would  not  be  safe  to  go 
below   a   certain  tide-mark   of  society.      During  the 
Shakespearian  festivals,  last  year,  a  London  omnibus- 
driver,  by  whose  side  I  was  sitting,  whose  daily  jour 
neys  took  him  under  the  very  walls  of  Apsley  House  and 
Buckingham  Palace,  gravely  asked  me,  "  Who  is  this 
fellow  Shakespeare  they're  making  such  a  damned  row 
about  ? "     My  impression  is,  that  next  to  Longfellow  in 
fame  on  British  soil  is  Washington  Irving,  although  an 
English  lady  of  wealth  and  literary  proclivities  once  in- 


American  Reputations  in  England.  133 

quired  of  me  whether  that  was  "the  Irving  who  attract 
ed  so  much  notice  as  an  eccentric  preacher  in  London 
thirty  years  ago  !  "  Next  in  renown  to  Longfellow  and 
Irving,  and  in  about  the  order  given,  are  the  names  of 
Hawthorne,  Emerson,  Prescott,  Lowell,  Dr.  Channing, 
Bryant,  and  Theodore  Parker.  I  am  surprised  to  find 
how  many  there  are  who  do  not  know  Whittier.  It 
would  be  wrong  to  omit  Elihu  Burritt,  who  is  every 
where  known  in  England,  and  for  whom  there  is  an 
affectionate  regard  among  multitudes  of  the  purest  and 
best.  He  has  passed  many  years  here  ;  he  has  lectur 
ed  in  nearly  every  town  and  village ;  he  has  gone  on 
foot  through  the  whole  length  of  the  island ;  and  by  the 
simplicity,  beauty  and  amiability  of  his  nature,  by  his 
learning,  by  his  calm  thinking,  by  his  modest  yet  glow 
ing  speech,  has  not  only  made  fame  for  himself,  but 
has  done  much  to  change  English  estimates  of  the 
American  character. 

It  is  very  probable  that  Americans  who  have  made 
the  tour  of  England  may  not  be  able  altogether  to 
verify  my  statements  by  their  own  experience,  and  es 
pecially  may  think  that  I  have  underrated  the  English 
reputation  of  some  whom  I  have  referred  to.  This  is 
but  natural.  Mere  tourists  bring  letters  to  the  very 
people  who  are  most  interested  in  America,  who  know 
most  about  America,  and  in  whose  conversation  these 
names  are  most  familiarly  used.  It  would  be  a  mistake 
to  infer  that  the  English  people  in  general  have  such 
an  acquaintance  with  our  literary  names.  But  having 
travelled  up  and  down  England  as  a  lecturer ;  having 


134          American  Reputations  in  England. 

had  the  opportunity  of  experimenting  with  all  sorts  of 
audiences  in  all  sorts  of  places,  by  purposely  throwing 
in  allusions  to  noted  Americans  and  watching  the  ef 
fect  ;  and  having  had  in  these  journeys  some  glimpse 
of  the  interior  of  English  life,  as  well  as  some  chance 
of  free  conversation  with  vast  numbers  of  the  middle- 
class  English  people,  it  is  likely  that  my  impressions 
are  not  what  they  would  be  were  I  seeing  England  as  a 
tourist  only.  My  duty  in  this  paper,  however,  has  been 
not  to  account  for  the  impressions  of  others,  but  truth 
fully  to  relate  my  own. 

It  is  with  a  melancholy  interest  that  I  look  back 
over  the  growth  of  the  English  fame  of  Abraham  Lin 
coln.  During  the  first  two  years  of  my  life  here,  he 
was  "  the  buffoon  President,"  "  the  vulgar  tyrant,"  "  the 
brutal  despot  revelling  in  the  woes  of  a  race."  As  his 
name  came  naturally  into  some  of  my  lectures,  I 
watched  curiously  the  changes  in  the  demonstrations 
which  it  excited.  Except  in  very  polite  audiences  it 
was  always  hissed.  Even  as  late  as  the  day  on  which 
we  received  the  news  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  re-election,  the 
mention  of  his  name  in  a  large  audience  convened  in 
the  very  heart  of  London  created  a  stormy  susurration 
of  hisses ;  and  when  the  hisses  provoked  a  retort  of 
cheers,  they  rallied  in  ten-fold  intensity,  and  won  the 
right.  His  death  has  now  changed  all.  During  the 
past  autumn  (1865),  laying  the  hand  on  the  popular 
pulse  in  the  same  way,  from  Cornwall  to  Yorkshire,  I 
found  his  name  and  praises  welcomed  with  hearty 
tributes  of  applause. 


American  Reputations  in  England.  135 

In  the  "  Scarlet  Letter  "  occurs  this  just  remark, 
that  "  it  contributes  greatly  towards  a  man's  moral  and 
intellectual  health  to  be  brought  into  habits  of  com 
panionship  with  individuals  unlike  himself,  who  care 
little  for  his  pursuits,  and  whose  sphere  and  abilities 
he  must  go  out  of  himself  to  appreciate."  May  not  a 
similar  remark  be  made  as  to  the  advantages  of  com 
panionship  with  those  who  care  little  for  the  personal 
reputations  which  have  always  awed  us,  for  the  august 
authorities  with  which  we  have  been  about  to  fortify 
our  speech,  for  the  enthroned  ones  in  literature  with 
whose  images  we  had  filled  the  pantheon  of  our  youth 
ful  homage  ?  Yet  it  would  be  a  rapture  to  get  home 
again  among  the  old  names,  and  to  take  on  once  more 
the  pleasant  yoke  of  the  old  reputations. 


THE  EUROPEAN  AND  AMERICAN  ORDER 
OF  THOUGHT. 


INTELLECTUAL  timidity  is  the  infirmity  of  cultivated 
men.  Property  is  essentially  conservative,  and  as  a 
general  rule,  therefore,  they  who  claim  a  present  dis 
tinction  are  willingly  sceptical  and  indifferent  to  the 
promise  of  the  future.  Such  is  human  nature,  and 
nobody  is  to  blame  for  it  short  of  the  original  Adam. 
A  bird  in  the  hand,  says  the  proverbial  wisdom  of  the 
world,  is  worth  two  in  the  bush.  Sure  present  posses 
sion  outweighs  any  amount  of  contingent  future  acquisi 
tion.  You  would  not  expect  a  physician  in  good  prac 
tice  to  be  foremost  in  denouncing  his  own  therapeutics, 
and  advocating  a  better.  You  would  not  expect  a 
successful  lawyer  whose  fame  and  revenues  are  depend 
ent  on  the  existing  methods  of  his  profession  to  be 
over-zealous  for  the  reform  of  those  methods.  Neither 
would  you  expect  a  clergyman  of  conspicuous  standing 
in  his  church  to  take  the  lead  there  in  inaugurating  a 
dogmatic  or  ritual  revolution.  Any  particular  lawyer, 
doctor,  or  divine  might,  it  is  true,  disconcert  your  ex 
pectation  ;  but  the  expectation  is  nevertheless  perfectly 
reasonable,  because  it  is  based  upon  general  experience, 


138  The  European  and  American 

or  deduced  from  the  principles  which  regulate  human 
nature  itself,  and  which  must,  therefore,  justify  them 
selves  in  the  long  run.  The  past,  in  so  far  as  it  over 
laps  the  present,  does  so  in  purely  fossil  form,  and 
hence  resists  decay.  And  the  present,  in  so  far  as  it 
has  got  itself  formulated  in  institutions,  or  identified 
with  living  interests,  fights  tooth  and  nail  against  the 
future.  In  a  word,  conflict  is  the  law  of  progress ;  and 
a  very  benignant  law  it  is,  no  doubt,  since  we  seem 
incapable  of  greatly  estimating  any  blessing  which  is 
lightly  won.  We  have  no  complaint  to  make  of  the 
fact.  We  only  adduce  it  by  way  of  hinting  a  probable 
explanation  of  the  serious  misconception  into  which 
European,  and  especially  English,  conservatism  has 
been  betrayed  in  respect  to  American  character  and 
tendencies. 

What  makes  the  peculiarity  of  the  era  in  which  we 
live  is,  that  it  is  the  consummation  of  a  long  conflict 
between  two  civilizations — one  artificial  and  provisional, 
as  built  on  force ;  the  other  natural  and  final,  as  built 
on  freedom,  or  the  spontaneous  tendencies  of  the  mind  ; 
one,  consequently,  moribund,  as  referring  its  true  vigor 
to  the  past ;  the  other  nascent,  as  finding  its  sure  prom 
ise  in  the  future.  The  political  life  of  Europe  uni 
versally,  and  that  of  England  in  an  eminent  degree, 
amounts  only  to  a  temporary  compromise  or  truce,  not 
to  a  permanent  reconciliation,  of  this  great  warfare. 
European,  and  especially  English,  culture  aims  to  endow 
man  with  civil  freedom  or  citizenship,  and  contemplates 
no  higher  destiny  as  within  the  range  of  his  earthly 


Order  of  Thought.  139 

possibilities.  The  European  theory  of  human  life  is 
that  it  is  primarily  civil  and  only  derivatively  social,  so 
that  the  persons  who  are  identified  with  the  civil  ad 
ministration  have  a  legitimate  title  also  to  an  excep 
tional  social  position  ;  and  its  ideal  of  individual  man 
hood  is  that  it  is  moral,  not  aesthetic — voluntary,  not 
spontaneous.  Now,  the  American  idea,  on  both  these 
points,  is  strikingly  opposed  to  the  European  one. 
You  have  only  to  observe  the  popular  instincts,  as  re 
flected  in  the  general  tenor  of  our  legislation,  to  per 
ceive  very  plainly  that  our  theory  of  human  life  is  that 
it  is  primarily  social  and  only  derivatively  civil ;  and 
hence  makes  delight  rather  than  duty,  spontaneity 
rather  than  will,  the  law  of  our  individual  development. 
It  is  this  fundamental  yet  wholly  involuntary  divergence 
on  our  part  from  the  traditions  of  the  Old  World  which 
exposes-  us  to  European,  and  especially  English,  obloquy 
and  intolerance.  It  is  not  evolution  they  see  in  us,  for 
to  that  they  could  easily  reconcile  themselves ;  it  is 
revolution,  and  revolution  in  the  most  inward  and  con 
ventionally  sacred  realm  of  life.  Practically,  in  fact, 
our  institutions  are  an  exact  inversion  of  theirs,  what 
is  first  and  last  in  our  estimation  being  severally  last 
and  first  in  theirs,  so  that  their  judgments  of  us  neces 
sarily  undergo  the  same  dislocation  with  respect  to  the 
actual  facts  of  the  case  that  our  view  of  the  landscape 
undergoes  when  we  look  at  it  through  an  inverted 
telescope.  Their  contempt  of  us  is  not  voluntary  or 
conscious ;  it  is  wholly  instinctive  and  unconscious, 
growing  out  of  a  sheer  diversity  of  natural  temperament 


140  The  European  and  American 

or  providential  direction  between  us,  and  arguing  no 
wilful  perverseness  on  their  part.  It  is  the  difference 
between  the  conventionally  righteous  and  the  conven 
tionally  reprobate  man  of  the  gospels,  the  former  of 
whom  cannot  help  saying,  with  all  his  heart,  "  Lord,  I 
thank  thee  that  I  am  not  as  this  publican,"  etc.  And 
it  would  be  just  as  unreasonable  in  us  to  demand  a 
favorable  European  or  English  judgment  of  us  as  it 
would  be  to  ask  a  New  York  millionnaire  to  renounce 
his  wealth  and  trot  about  the  streets  in  the  insignia  of 
a  voluntary  or  ostentatious  poverty. 

We  emphasize  the  Englishman  in  all  this  matter, 
because  there  is  no  bosom  extant  in  which  the  social 
principle,  the  principle  of  a  wholly  spontaneous  equity 
among  men,  is  so  weak  as  in  the  English,  and  the  civic 
or  moral  principle,  the  principle  of  voluntary  or  legal 
rectitude,  so  strong.  There  is  no  one,  consequently,  so 
eminently  disqualified  as  the  Englishman  is  by  original 
genius  (and,  indeed,  acquired  culture  also)  to  do  us 
justice,  in  whose  development  the  social  sentiment 
grows  ever  more  absolute,  and  the  moral  sentiment 
ever  more  impotent.  It  is  this  supremacy  of  will  to 
spontaneity,  of  moral  to  aesthetic  force,  of  civic  to  social 
aspiration,  of  outward  letter,  in  short,  to  inward  spirit, 
which  constitutes  the  strength  of  European  conserva 
tism,  and  which  renders  the  Englishman  specifically  so 
unsocial,  or  averse  to  all  change  which  looks  towards 
the  eventual  brotherhood  or  fellowship  of  man.  Our 
political  and  ecclesiastical  heritage  cannot  help  striking 
him  as  painfully  squalid,  because  it  disavows  all  sancti- 


Order  of  Thought.  141 

ty  underived  from  the  popular  heart.  The  supremacy 
of  the  distinctively  social  conscience  among  us  both  to 
the  civic  and  ecclesiastic  conscience,  makes  him  pat 
his  own  old  paunch  of  privilege  with  infinite  com 
placency,  and  ensures  us  his  boundless  reprobation. 
Every  look  at  us  is  sure  to  inflame  his  arrogance,  and 
harden  him  inwardly  against  those  tides  of  fellowship 
or  equality  which  are  here  flowing  unchecked — at  all 
events  by  institutions — into  the  human  mind,  and  so 
preparing,  let  us  hope,  an  immaculate  divine  edifice  in 
human  nature.  In  short,  belief  in  England  and  in  the 
permanence  of  English  institutions  and  culture  is  a 
religious  obligation  upon  the  average  Englishman's 
conscience ;  and  his  contempt  of  you  accordingly  is  not 
wilful  or  flippant,  but  is  a  slow,  dumpy,  adipose  product 
of  his  defective  spiritual  respiration,  of  his  still  imma 
ture  manhood.  It  is  an  honest  excrescence  of  natural 
genius  or  temperament  in  him — astonishing  you,  no 
doubt,  by  its  magnitude,  benumbing  you  for  the  most 
part  by  its  contact,  reducing  you  to  impotence  before 
it;  but  you  respect  it  in  its  place,  just  as  you  respect  a 
goitre  in  Switzerland  or  a  blue-nose  in  Nova  Scotia, 
and  never  dream  of  making  the  unaffected  individual 
subject  of  it  responsible. 

There  is,  however,  a  spurious  Englishman — a  cheap 
modern  edition  of  this  ancient  stately  original — the 
Scotch,  Canadian,  or  West  Indian  Englishman,  who  is 
full,  oftentimes,  of  wilful  impertinence,  and  fidgets  you 
like  fleas,  poisoning  your  honest  human  flesh  by  his 
venomous  intention  past  all  scratching  to  relieve,  and 


142  The  European  and  American 

making  you  long  to  get  well  hold  of  him  once  between 
finger  and  thumb,  in  order  to  do  the  wholesome  world 
a  service.  These  parasitic  English  stand  in  the  same 
unhandsome  relation  to  the  true  John  Bull  as  the 
retainers  of  a  great  house  stand  in  towards  its  lord. 
The  heir  of  the  house  is  incapable  of  parading  his 
dignity,  but  all  they  who  wear  his  livery  either  under 
or  above  their  clothes — namely,  his  poor  relations  and 
his  paid  servants — turn  up  their  futile,  consequential 
noses  in  a  manner  so  aggressive  and  violent  as  greatly 
to  invite  pulling  on  the  part  of  the  embarrassed  head 
of  the  family,  and  dispose  him  oftentimes  to  renounce 
a  conventional  dignity  so  fatal  to  all  who  underpin  it 
or  even  believe  in  it.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this 
provincial  and  colonial  flunkeyism  provokes  the  same 
disgust  in  the  manly  English  bosom  that  it  does  in 
ours.  However  limited  the  Englishman  may  be  in 
point  of  social  sympathy,  he  has  none  of  this  fretful, 
mischievous,  suspicious  consciousness  which  you  ob 
serve  in  the  Canadian,  Scotch,  or  other  poor  relation. 
And  we  must  say  we  seldom  meet  in  a  respectable 
English  periodical  the  same  shameless  rage  of  insult 
and  defamation  which  is  habitual  to  the  Scotch  "  Black- 
wood."  The  editorial  temper  of  this  snuffy,  unventila- 
ted  magazine,  both  moral  and  intellectual,  is  morbid 
enough  to  be  the  effect  of  a  repelled  eruption — looks 
like  a  cuticular  irritation  driven  in  to  prey  at  leisure 
upon  heart  and  brain.  It  is  the  temper  of  a  vixenish 
old  family  nurse,  with  arms  always  akimbo,  who  feels 
so  sure  of  her  darling  provoking  everybody's  distrust 


Order  of  Thought.  143 

or  dislike  as  to  be  forever  railing  at  the  rest  of  the 
parish  by  anticipation  on  his  behalf.  And  we  appre 
hend  that  you  may  always,  when  you  encounter  any 
thing  very  dirty  or  unscrupulous  in  English  periodicals, 
safely  ascribe  it,  not  to  any  Englishman  who  is  socially 
enfranchised,  or  entitled  to  the  dignity  of  a  man  in  his 
own  country,  but  to  some  underbred  member  of  that 
large  herd  who  live  by  the  pecuniary  patronage  or  the 
social  tolerance  of  the  aristocracy. 

We  have  been  indulging  in  no  personal  comparisons 
between  the  European  and  the  American,  to  the  latter's 
advantage.  Our  purpose  has  been  simply  to  contrast 
the  spirit  which  animates  European  institutions  with 
that  which  animates  ours  ;  and  to  show  that  while  the 
one  contemplates  and  provides  for  the  highest  individual 
distinction  among  men,  at  the  risk  if  not  at  the  actual 
cost  of  a  permanent  debasement  of  all  the  rest,  the 
other  provides  for  and  tolerates  no  such  distinction 
which  does  not  grow  out  of  the  gradual  elevation  of  the 
masses.  We  have  no  doubt  that  so  far  as  the  personal 
attitude  of  the  European  and  the  American  is  concern 
ed,  with  reference  to  the  reigning  temper  of  their  re 
spective  institutions,  the  advantage  is  very  apt  to  be 
with  the  European;  for  he  is  oftentimes  individually 
very  much  in  advance  of  his  institutions,  while  the 
American  is  almost  never  quite  up  to  his. 


ROADS. 


ABOUT  this  period  of  the  year  there  is,  all  over  the 
Union,  or  at  least  all  over  the  Northern  States,  a  gen 
eral  repairing  of  the  roads.  The  frost  is  fairly  gone. 
The  scars  the  snow  and  the  winter  torrents  have  left 
on  the  highways  have  to  be  removed.  The  season  for 
riding  has  fairly  set  in,  and  ways  have  to  be  made  safe 
and  pleasant  for  the  great  swarm  of  buggies,  wagons, 
rockaways,  barouches,  gigs,  and  chaises  which  issue 
from  their  winter  hiding-places  as  soon  as  the  spring 
mud  has  dried.  The  roadmasters,  contractors,  and 
selectmen  accordingly  go  to  work  with  great  zeal  and 
assiduity  to  put  the  public  highways  in  order,  and  the 
way  in  which  they  attempt  to  do  this  is  so  extraordi 
nary  that  nothing  but  long  habit  prevents  the  public 
from  enjoying  its  absurdity.  There  is,  perhaps,  no  way 
in  which  we  can  bring  the  nature  of  the  process  so 
fully  before  the  mind  of  our  readers  as  by  stating  that, 
except  in  very  rocky  or  mountainous  districts,  there  is, 
perhaps,  hardly  a  mile  of  road  north  of  Mason  and 
Dixon's  line  which,  after  receiving  the  last  touches  from 
the  road  mender,  is  not  capable,  if  the  traffic  on  it  be 
7 


146  Roads. 

suspended,  of  producing  a  luxuriant  crop  of  potatoes, 
cabbages,  or  of  any  other  garden  vegetable.     The  rea 
son  of  this  is  that  the  highway  is  the  only  portion  of 
our  Northern  country  which  is  every  year  systemati 
cally  and  richly  manured.     Most  city  people  even,  are 
probably  aware  that,  roads  being  generally  slightly  ele 
vated,  there  runs  along  on  each  side  of  them  a  hollow 
or  ditch  into  which  the  rains  sweep  most  of  the  mud 
from  their  surface  as  well  as  the  mould  of  the  adjoin 
ing  fields,  the  dead  leaves  of  the  trees,  and  a  large 
quantity  of  other  decaying  or  decayed  vegetable  mat 
ter.     These,  consequently,  form  on  the  road-side  de 
posits  of  soil  or  manure  of  great  value  for  agricultural 
purposes,  and  which  farmers,  if  they  were  wise,  would 
cart  away  and    spread  over  their  weary  fields.     The 
deposits   accumulate   without  disturbance    during  the 
summer,  fall,  and  winter,  and  in  the  spring  comes  the 
road-mender  and  scrapes  them  out,  sometimes  with  a 
spade,  sometimes  with  a  plough  and  yoke  of  oxen,  and 
carefully  spreads  them  on  the  middle  of  the  highway 
wherever  he  sees  a  hollow  place.     Most  intelligent  for 
eigners  who  witness  this  process,  and  are  not  familiar 
with  the  agricultural  theory  of  roads,  are  apt  to  imagine 
that  it  is  dictated  by  malice  or  carelessness — that  the 
farmer  wants  to  clean  his  ditches  out,  and,  to  save  him 
self  trouble,  dumps  the  contents  in  the  road,  in  sheer 
indifference  to  the  comforts  or  convenience  of  travellers. 
Nobody  who  was  familiar  with  the  result  could  honestly 
say  that  this  suspicion  was  entirely  unjustifiable,  for  the 
stuff  that  is  thus  put  on  never  hardens.     After  rain  it 


Roads.  147 

becomes  a  quagmire  ;  two  or  three  days  of  sun  convert 
it  into  dust,  which  horses  and  wheels  raise  into  thick 
clouds,  rendering  driving  in  dry  weather  something  only 
to  be  undertaken  under  pressure  of  necessity.  It  is 
not  unnatural,  therefore,  to  ascribe  the  putting  of  it 
on  to  malignity  or  selfishness.  Nature,  if  left  to  her 
self,  converts  a  track  made  over  most  parts  of  the 
country  into  a  tolerably  good  road  in  time.  The  rains 
wash  away  the  loose  and  soft  clay  from  the  surface  and 
bring  us  rapidly  down  to  "the  hard  pan,"  which,  if 
kept  tolerably  level  by  filling  the  hollows  with  gravel 
and  picking  out  protruding  stones,  is  perhaps  as  good 
a  highway  as  we  can  have  without  paving  or  macadam 
izing,  except  in  very  miry  districts  where  the  subsoil 
itself  is  soft.  But  this  our  road-menders  are  careful 
not  to  do.  They  pile  on  the  "  hard  pan  "  all  the  soft, 
glutinous,  gelatinous  substances  to  be  found  in  the 
neighborhood,  or  in  other  words,  supply  the  materials 
for  the  two  great  pests  of  American  country  life — the 
mud  and  the  dust.  On  the  by-roads  this  nuisance  is 
not  so  serious,  because  they  are  very  rarely  repaired, 
and  one  can  accordingly  often  jog  over  them,  if 
with  a  good  deal  of  jolting,  at  least  with  eyes  un- 
bleared  and  lungs  and  nostrils  unchoked.  But  the 
post-roads  and  great  thoroughfares  no  trouble  is  spared 
to  make  impassable.  Whatever  ploughing  and  piling 
up  soft  dirt  can  do  to  make  them  killing  to  beasts  and 
offensive  to  men  is  done  with  almost  amusing  conscien 
tiousness.  We  never  pass  a  party  repairing  a  road  in 
this  way  that  we  are  not  touched  by  the  simple,  un- 


148  Roads. 

conscious,  and  unabashed  air  with  which  they  dump 
the  manure  right  under  our  wheels. 

As  there  are  a  good  many  very  worthy  people  who 
think  this  the  proper  way  to  make  or  repair  a  road,  we 
may  be  pardoned  for  stating  that  ever  since  the  days  of 
the  Romans  it  has  been  an  acknowledged  canon  of 
the  road-making  art,  that  the  first  requisite  of  a  road  is 
hardness.     The  wheels  of  vehicles  must  not  sink  in  it. 
Rain  must  not  affect  it  beyond  making  it  dirty.     There 
must  not  be  on  it  anything  which  the  sun  can  convert 
into  deep  dust.     The  Romans  found  out,  as  soon  as 
the  empire  began  to  extend,  that  nothing  but  hard 
highways  diverging  from  the  capital  to  every  corner  of 
their  dominion  would  suffice  to  bind  it  together.     The 
result  was  the  construction  of  those  magnificent  cause 
ways,  composed  of  large  square  blocks  of  hewn  stone, 
crossing  hill  and  dale,  and  piercing  right  through  for 
est  and  swamp  for  hundreds  or  thousands  of  miles  as 
the   crow  flies,  in  every  direction,  and  bringing  home    I 
to  the  inhabitants  of  the  remotest  provinces,  as  nothing   j 
else  could,  the  extent  of  the  imperial  power.     "  Far  as    : 
the  eye  could  reach,"  says  the  latest  historian  of  the   :.: 
empire,  "  stretched   these   mysterious   symbols  of  her   \ 
all-attaining  influence,  and  where  the  sense  failed  to    • 
follow,  the  imagination  came  into  play,  and  wafted  the 
thoughts  of  the  awe-stricken  provincial  to  the  gates  of 
Rome  and  the  praetorium  of  the  venerable  imperator." 
When  Rome  fell,  the  roads  went  gradually  to  decay. 
During  the  Middle  Ages  nothing  was  done  to   repair 
them.     Many  of  the  great  lines  were  totally  abandoned. 


Roads.  149 

Forests  grew  over  them,  the  soil  covered  them,  and  the 
return  of  civilization  found  the  modern  world  toiling 
through  the  mud  of  the  self-same  tracks  across 
country  which  Ca3sar  had  got  rid  of  a  thousand  years 
previously.  In  short,  the  art  of  road-making  was  lost, 
and  was  not  revived  till  the  close  of  the  last  century, 
and  the  beginning  of  this,  when  good  macadamized  or 
paved  roads  began  to  make  their  appearance  in  all  the 
countries  of  Western  Europe,  and  had  become  general 
before  the  railroads  took  away  the  greater  part  of  their 
importance. 

With  us,  however,  the  smallness  of  the  population 
compared  to  the  area  over  which  it  was  scattered,  ren 
dered  any  means  of  inland  communication  better  than 
a  cleared  track  through  the  forest  out  of  the  question. 
There  was  neither  the  money  nor  the  labor  to  spare  for 
anything  better,  and  the  sea  and  the  rivers  offered 
ample  facilities  for  the  transportation  of  merchandise  ; 
carriages  were  scarce ;  people  performed  most  of  their 
journeys  on  horseback,  and  we  had  hardly  become 
conscious  that  our  roads  were  bad,  or  rather  that  we 
had  no  roads,  when  railroads  were  invented.  These  of 
course  became  at  once  the  great  highways  of  the 
country,  and  the  common  roads  relapsed  into  the  ap 
parently  complete  insignificance  in  which  we  now  find 
them.  That  the  public  has  not  always  been  content 
with  the  "  dirt  road,"  however,  was  shown  a  few  years 
ago  by  the  number  of  plank  roads  that  were  con 
structed  ;  but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  but  very  few  people 
who  have  not  seen  the  network  of  roads  by  which  con- 


150  Roads. 

tinental  Europe  and  England  are  covered,  or  those  of 
the  Central  Park,  in  New  York,  have  any  adequate  idea 
either  of  what  a  good  road  is,  or  what  a  luxury  it  is  to 
those  who  live  beside  it  or  have  occasion  to  use  it. 
The  notions  of  the  farmers  on  this  subject  are  revealed 
in  the  kind  of  thing  which  they  dress  up  in  spring 
and  call  a  good  road — a  bank  of  soft  earth,  slightly 
convex,  and  as  far  as  contour  goes  sufficiently  near 
perfection,  but  allowing  wheels  in  wet  weather  to  sink 
axle-deep  in  mud  and  in  dry  weather  axle-deep  in  dust 
— in  other  words,  differing  in  no  respect  from  the  ad 
joining  fields  except  in  the  absence  of  grass  and  in 
being  smoothed  off. 

This  horrible  simplicity  of  ours  in  the  matter  of 
roads,  and,  we  may  add,  in  all  matters  connected  with 
travelling,  is  rendered  more  remarkable  by  our  luxu- 
riousness  in  other  things — hotels,  for  instance — and  by 
the  fact  that  there  is  no  people  in  the  world  who  ride  so 
much  in  carriages  for  pleasure.  We  believe  there  are  not 
less  than  twenty  carriages  kept  in  America  in  propor 
tion  to  population,  for  mere  recreation,  for  the  one  kept 
in  any  European  country,  and,  if  we  put  aside  the  hacks 
in  the  great  cities,  in  the  use  of  which  Europeans,  for 
obvious  reasons,  far  surpass  us,  we  believe  it  is  safe  to 
say  that  for  one  vehicle  hired  in  any  European  country 
for  recreation,  forty  are  hired  here  ;  so  that  there  is, 
perhaps,  no  country  in  the  world  in  which  the  condition 
of  the  roads  is  of  so  much  importance  to  so  large  a 
number  of  persons.  Why,  then,  are  they  not  better  ? 

That  their  length  is  so  great  in  proportion  to  the 


Roads.  151 

population,  may  be  a  sufficient  answer  as  far  as  regards 
the  West,  but  not  as  regards  the  Eastern  States.  The 
roads  round  Boston,  or  New  York,  or  Philadelphia  are 
in  precisely  the  same  condition  as  those  of  Iowa  or 
Minnesota  ;  that  is  to  say,  they  are  hard  or  soft,  wet  or 
dry,  according  to  the  nature  of  the  soil  over  which  they 
pass,  although  they  lie  in  some  of  the  most  densely  peo 
pled  districts  of  the  western  world.  Nor  is  the  great 
cost  of  macadamizing  any  answer  either.  There  are  no 
richer  communities  to  be  found  anywhere  than  those 
of  our  Eastern  States — as  compared  say  with  Ireland 
or  Switzerland,  they  may  be  called  enormously  wealthy 
— and  yet  both  of  these  latter  countries  are  covered 
with  macadamized  roads  of  the  most  extraordinary 
smoothness  and  hardness,  always  in  perfect  repair,  and 
exhibiting,  in  the  case  of  Switzerland,  engineering 
triumphs  of  the  most  remarkable  kind.  The  cost  of 
some  of  the  Swiss  roads,  such  as  that  which  has  lately 
been  completed  across  the  Briinig  Pass,  or  that  which 
ascends  from  the  Valais  to  Loeche,  must  have  been 
enormous.  And  yet  the  Irish  and  Swiss  roads  are 
paid  for  and  kept  in  repair  by  a  population  of  poor 
fanners  by  rates  levied  on  the  counties  or  cantons.  To 
be  sure,  in  the  case  of  the  Swiss,  good  roads  are  part 
of  their  stock  in  trade,  furnishing  a  strong  attraction  to 
tourists  ;  but  this  by  no  means  covers  the  whole  case. 
On  the  other  hand,  roads  may  be  found  in  our  Eastern 
States,  running  between  miles  on  miles  of  villas  or  neat 
farm-houses,  to  the  owners  of  which  the  cost  of  macad 
amizing  the  whole  county  would  be  a  trifle,  but  who 


152  Roads. 

nevertheless  toil  through  mud  and  dust  from  year  to 
year  with  saintly  resignation. 

We  are  driven  to  the  conclusion,  therefore,  that  it  is 
because  our  people  do  not  know  what  good  roads  are 
that  they  go  without  them,  and  for  this  reason  we  look 
upon  the  roads  in  the  Central  Park  as  possessing  a  value 
far  beyond  that  which  lies  in  the  convenience  they  af 
ford  to  promenaders.  They  are  real  educators.  No 
body  who  walks  or  rides  over  them,  and  sees  what  wear 
and  tear  they  save  in  horse-flesh,  in  harness,  and  car 
riages,  is  ever  likely  to  be  content  again  with  the  dirty 
lanes  which  the  towns  and  villages  of  the  country  dis 
tricts  offer  to  the  wayfarer,  and  in  fact  we  already  see 
macadamized  roads  spreading  around  New  York. 

We  should  hardly  have  dwelt  on  this  matter  at  such 
length,  important  as  it  is  in  a  material  point  of  view, 
but  for  the  bearing  it  has  on  that  most  serious  problem 
over  which  so  many  Americans  are  now  puzzling,  of 
where  and  how  to  live.  We  are  constantly  deploring 
the  growing  tendency  to  crowd  into  the  cities  ;  but  of  all 
the  things  which  contribute  to  make  the  country  repul 
sive  as  a  dwelling  place — to  make  life  in  it  dull,  monot 
onous,  gloomy,  and  not  always  healthful — the  badness 
of  the  roads  stands  first.  It  makes  exercise  on  foot 
impossible  except  in  the  fall.  It  doubles  the  labor  of 
horses  and  makes  it  necessary  to  keep  two  to  do  the 
work  of  one  ;  it  doubles  the  cost  of  carriage  repairs  j  it 
makes  social  visiting  difficult  even  between  near  neigh 
bors,  and  in  fact  during  two-thirds  of  the  year  relegates 
all  who  cannot  afford  to  keep  large  studs  to  their  own 


Roads.  153 

houses  and  gardens.  The  road  outside  is  in  winter  a 
river  of  mud  ;  in  summer,  a  pit  full  of  dust ;  and  it  may 
be  safely  said,  in  fact,  that  children  are  able  to  be  out 
of  doors  a  far  greater  number  of  hours  in  the  course  of 
the  year  in  the  city  than  in  the  country,  owing  to  the 
fact  that  in  the  former  they  have  a  paved  sidewalk  to 
take  exercise  on,  from  October  until  June. 
7* 


PEWS. 


THE  annual  pew-renting  at  Mr.  Beecher's  meeting 
house  in  Brooklyn  concerns  so  many  people,  and  inter 
ests  so  many  whom  it  does  not  concern,  that  it  is,  in 
some  sort,  a  public  matter,  and  may  be  fairly  made  a 
subject  of  comment  by  the  press.  It  shall  certainly 
have  no  unfavorable  or  unfriendly  comment  from  us. 
We  have  no  reflections  to  make  either  on  the  operation 
itself  or  on  the  details  of  its  conduct.  Whatever  want 
of  taste  there  may  be  in  the  public  exhibition  which  at 
tracts  the  large  crowd  and  excites  so  much  pleasantry, 
is  incidental  merely,  and  in  no  wise  detracts  from  the 
credit  of  the  preacher  whose  power  draws  people  from 
vast  distances  to  hear  him,  and  forces  them  into  vehe 
ment  competition  for  seats  in  his  sanctuary.  In  few 
cases  would  the  system  adopted  at  Plymouth  Church 
be  anything  but  foolish  and  ruinous.  It  can  succeed 
only  where  there  is  great  demand  for  seats.  Only  ex 
traordinary  power  will  create  such  a  demand,  and, 
where  the  demand  exists,  it  is  natural  that  it  should  be 
used  for  purposes  of  revenue.  It  is  in  its  general  as 
pects  that  the  question  engages  our  attention.  The 


156  Pews. 

public  are  interested  in  knowing  the  best  way  of  sup 
porting  religious  institutions,  and,  at  the  same  time,  giv 
ing  the  advantage  of  them  to  the  largest  number  of 
people,  especially  to  those  who  most  need  or  desire 
them,  namely,  the  people  in  moderate  circumstances. 
Religious  instruction  has  become  the  luxury  of  the  rich. 
Is  there  any  help  for  it  ?  If  there  is  not,  religion  may 
as  well  be  handed  over  to  the  upholsterers,  to  be  used 
frankly  for  purposes  of  decoration.  If  there  is  a  reme 
dy,  where  is  it  ?  Must  it  not  be  found  in  some  differ 
ent  method  of  seating  people  in  places  of  worship  ? 
Here  is  the  point.  Three  methods  are  in  vogue  :  that 
of  selling  the  pews  and  levying  a  specific  tax  on  them 
for  current  expenses  ;  that  of  annually  renting  them  to 
the  highest  bidder ;  and  that  of  leaving  the  sittings  free 
and  meeting  the  expenses  by  the  voluntary  subscriptions 
of  those  who  are  most  interested  and  can  best  afford  to 
pay.  Of  course  we  have  no  purpose  to  discuss  at 
length  the  actual  or  the  relative  advantages  or  disad 
vantages  of  these  methods ;  but  the  annual  rental  at 
Mr.  Beecher's  suggests  a  few  thoughts  bearing  on  the 
subject  which  may  be  worth  considering. 

To  take,  first,  the  unfavorable  side  of  the  Brooklyn 
plan,  as  that  side  is  the  most  obvious,  it  may  not  be 
presuming  to  intimate  that  the  "  temporalities,"  as  they 
are  courteously  called — in  plain  language,  the  money 
matters — crop  out  with  an  unseemly  prominence  in  this 
method.  When  the  pews  are  sold  at  a  fixed  price  the 
financial  movement  is  very  quiet.  The  treasurer  sends 
his  bills  to  the  proprietors,  collects  the  rents,  and 


Pews.  157 

makes  his  annual  business  statement.  Should  the  rev 
enue  be  inadequate  to  meet  the  expenses,  the  tax  on 
the  original  valuation  of  the  pews  is  increased  one  or 
two  per  cent.,  and  the  additional  income  is  gathered  up 
as  quietly  as  before.  Nothing  is  said  in  church  about 
money.  The  bare  mention  of  money  under  this  arrange 
ment  comes  at  last  to  be  resented  as  an  impertinence. 
In  the  free  churches  the  contribution-box  is  a  frequent 
apparition,  but  so  frequent  as  to  cause  no  surprise  and 
occasion  no  disturbance  in  the  train  of  thought.  The 
bulk  of  the  expense  is  carried  by  a  few  who  privately 
subscribe  and  pay  their  promised  sum.  But  on  the 
auction  principle  there  is  no  escaping  the  ring  of  the 
coin  on  the  counter.  The  money-changers  have  the 
temple  for  one  memorable  evening — the  Gospel  is  put 
up  to  the  highest  bidder,  and  he  who  can  pay  most  has 
publicly  assigned  to  him  the  best  seat.  There  is  the 
auctioneer,  fresh  from  his  sale  of  dry  goods,  stirring  up 
the  crowd  to  pay  down  a  good  price  for  their  wine  and 
milk,  provoking  competition,  tempting  all,  perhaps,  to 
give  more  than  they  want  to,  and  many  to  pay  more 
than  they  can  afford,  and  making  no  few  ashamed  of 
their  impecuniosity  and  their  back  seat.  Dives  antici 
pates  his  place  in  the  kingdom,  and  Lazarus  must  be 
contented  with  his  dim  anticipation  of  Abraham's  bo 
som.  The  rich  man  comes  up  to  the  Christ,  holds  out 
his  porte-monnaie  instead  of  dropping  on  his  knees,  and, 
instead  of  being  sent  away  sorrowful,  is  invited  to  take 
the  front  seat.  This  is  not  handsome. 

It  is  not  handsome  either  to  associate  position  in  the 


158  Pews. 

church  with  money.  The  aristocratic  spirit  will  find  its 
way  into  churches  fast  enough.  Fashion  will  get  its 
ecclesiastical  authentication.  The  first  society  will 
have  its  chosen  temple,  and  its  favorite  place  therein. 
But  these  temples  are  not  always  associated  with 
money ;  nor  are  these  favorite  places  identified  with 
success  in  trade.  The  choice  seats  represent  social 
position  on  the  ground  of  family  or  elegance  or  culture, 
all  implying  a  certain  amount  of  refined  taste — bad 
enough,  to  be  sure ;  exquisitely  bad  ;  Pharisaism  is 
none  the  worthier  for  being  graceful,  nor  is  snobbery 
any  the  less  offensive  to  the  spiritual  sense  for  having 
its  name  on  the  selectest  visiting  list.  Still,  though  no 
less  offensive  to  the  spiritual  sense,  to  the  aesthetical 
sense  it  is  far  less  offensive.  Worldiness  is  worldiness ; 
but  refined  worldiness  is  less  shocking  than  unrefined. 
Money  may  be  at  the  bottom  of  all  of  it  at  last,  but 
money  transmuted  into  gentle  sentiment  and  lovely 
manners  stands  less  in  the  way  of  worship  than  does 
money  in  the  shape  of  bank-notes.  There  is  such  a  thing 
as  idealizing  bullion,  and  pray  let  religion  have  it  in  its 
most  ideal  form. 

But  to  touch  a  more  vital  point.  What  becomes  of 
the  poor  in  churches  where  the  seats  are  knocked 
clown  to  the  highest  bidder,  and  where  the  number  of 
bidders  is  great  enough  to  take  up  all  the  seats  ?  The 
poor  it  may  be  said  have  no  chance  in  any  popular 
church,  whatever  the  mode  of  raising  the  income.  If 
the  pews  are  sold,  the  rich  buy  them.  If  they  are  tax 
ed,  the  poor  cannot  pay  the  taxes.  If  admitted  at  all, 


Pews.  159 

they  must  take  such  places  as  nobody  wants.  They 
may  like  good  preaching  as  well  as  their  richer  neigh 
bors  ;  but  if  the  preaching  be  worth  having,  how  are 
they  to  get  it  ?  True  ;  but  they  are  not  usually  pushed 
out  as  poor.  They  are  not  palpably  made  to  feel  their 
poverty.  They  are  not  known  of  all  men  as  persons 
who  are  unable  to  hire  seats.  They  are  not  forced  to 
sit  under  the  charge  of  demerit.  Under  the  auction 
system,  if  they  find  admittance  at  all,  they  come  in  to 
take,  not  what  is  generously  set  apart  for  them,  but 
what  nobody  can  be  found  willing  to  pay  for,  what  has 
been  put  up  for  sale  and  met  no  purchaser — in  a  word, 
what  was  left.  And  is  not  this  to  make  poverty  not 
only  a  misfortune,  but  a  reproach,  and  a  reproach  in 
the  very  place  of  all  places  where  it  should  be  allowed 
to  forget  itself  in  the  company  of  Him  who  was  the 
great  friend  of  the  poor  ? 

To  balance  these  disadvantages,  the  rental  system 
has  one  great  advantage  which  it  shares  in  common 
with  the  free  system,  but  which  the  ordinary  system  of 
sale  and  taxation  misses  entirely.  It  breaks  up  the 
uniformity  of  audiences,  and  allows  congregations  to 
change  at  least  once  a  year.  The  free  system  allows 
them  to  change  once  a  week,  which  is  better,  admitting 
of  a  constant  flux  and  reflux,  an  incessant  variety,  and 
at  the  same  time  breaking  up  monotony  in  the  weekly 
assemblies,  flinging  the  people  of  all  conditions  pro 
miscuously  together,  permitting  no  association  to  be 
come  fixed,  no  places  to  become  appropriated,  but  en 
forcing  an  external  semblance  of  humanity,  which  be- 


i6o 


Pews. 


comes  more  than  a  semblance  in  course  of  time.     The 
custom  of  proprietorship  in  pews  is  fatal  to  everything 
of  this  kind.     The  society  becomes  more  compact,  but 
it  does  not  become  more  sympathetic.     It  acquires  an 
element  of  permanency,  but  it  loses  the  element  of  hu 
manity.     It  makes  sure  of  people  by  pinning  them  to 
one  and  the  same  spot.     The  preacher  sees  before  him 
year  after  year  precisely  the  same  persons.     For  a  gen 
eration,   perhaps,   his    auditors    may   not  perceptibly 
change  in  character ;  some  will  die ;  some  will  leave 
the  city  or  the  neighborhood ;  but  the  great  body  of  them 
stay  where  they  are.     To  the  undevout  it  must  seem  as 
if  the  preacher  could  not  but  tell  them  all  he  knows  a 
great  many  times  over,  and  be  tempted  to  tell  them  a 
great  deal  more  than  he  knows  for  the  sake  of  gaining 
their  attention.     The  Word  finds  no  vent  or  diffusion! 
Often  the  people  cannot  get  away  from  the  minister  if 
they  wish  to.     Their  bodies  are  with  their   treasure, 
while  their  hearts  are  elsewhere  ;  they  own  the  pew,' 
and   cannot   sell  it,  so   they  go   to   church   for  their 
money's  worth  ;  they  would  go  elsewhere  if  they  could, 
but  they  cannot  afford  two  pews  ;  they  wish  it  were  in 
their  power  to  give  place  to  somebody  who  would  en 
joy  the  ministrations  ;  but  it  is  not. 

Often  under  this  system  the  minister  cannot  get  rid 
of  his  people.  He  knows  that  they  dislike  him  on  ac 
count  of  his  opinions.  He  is  sure  that  they  are  talking 
and  plotting  against  him.  He  would  be  thankful  if 
they  would  go  and  let  others  in.  But  how  can  he 
make  them  go  ?  They  stand  on  their  rights  of  prop- 


Pews.  161 

erty ;  they  fortify  their  pews  against  the  pulpit :  they 
extend  their  fortifications  by  buying  more  pews,  every 
pew  representing  a  vote.  They  turn  the  church  into  a 
battle-ground,  and  are  ready  to  fight  it  out  till  the 
minister  leaves.  This  is  no  .uncommon  occurrence 
where  pews  are  held  as  property  Under  the  auction 
rule  nothing  of  this  sort  is  possible.  Discontent  can 
not  be  long  lived.  At  the  end  of  the  year  the  malcontents 
have  a  chance  to  go.  The  preacher  may  feel  all  the 
time  that  he  is  preaching  to  people  who,  of  their  own 
free  choice,  come  to  hear  him.  Each  hearer  must  de 
cide  deliberately  whether  to  continue  a  hearer  or  not. 
If  any  come  who  do  not  wish  to  come,  they  must  be 
very  few.  The  audience  will  change  materially  every 
twelve  months,  and  if  they  are  floating,  so  much  the 
better,  for  while  they  stay  they  will  be  alive,  and  when 
they  go  they  will  go  to  find  something  they  like  better. 
But  theoretically  the  free  system  commends  itself  as 
the  most  rational  system.  It  is  the  only  system  that  is 
truly  social,  hospitable,  and  sympathetic.  It  is  the  only 
system  that  fairly  puts  all  worshippers  on  the  same 
level.  It  is  rarely  attempted  on  a  large  scale ;  it  is 
seldom  successful  even  on  a  small  scale.  It  is  not 
generally  deemed  practicable.  But  until  it  can  be  made 
so,  the  administration  of  religion  will  never,  we  are  sat 
isfied,  be  what  it  should  be.  The  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  its  operation  are  very  great.  We  have  few  rich 
ecclesiastical  corporations,  very  few  wealthy  religious 
endowments.  We  have  divorced  religion  from  the  state, 
and  forced  it  to  depend  for  its  support  on  the  voluntary 


1 62  Pews. 

contributions  of  its  friends.  The  consequence  is  that 
few  will  pay  for  any  religion  but  their  own.  But  the 
time  may  come  yet  when  the  opulent  classes  will  rec 
ognize  religion,  like  education,  as  being  a  great  public 
interest,  to  be  maintained  by  those  who  are  able  to 
support  it  for  those  who  are  not.  If  that  time  ever 
does  come,  churches  for  the  people  will  be  established, 
as  schools  and  colleges  are,  for  the  general  benefit.  All 
alike  will  share  the  blessing ;  those  who  can  will  bear 
the  cost. 


A  CONNECTICUT  VILLAGE. 


IT  was  founded  in  1639,  and  by  a  small  colony  of 
emigrants  from  Stratford-on-Avon.  This  fact  alone 
might  well  make  us  respect  the  place,  but  there  is  not 
a  town  or  village  in  New  England  that  could  better  rest 
satisfied  with  its  many  attractions.  It  stands  on  the 
western  bank  of  the  Housatonic  or  Ousatonick  River, 
on  a  level  plain,  with  the  Sound  three  miles  away  on 
the  south,  the  city  of  Bridgeport  a  little  further  off  on 
the  west,  and  with  a  rolling,  rich,  well-cultivated,  and 
picturesque  country  on  the  north ;  and  although  crossed 
by  the  line  of  the  New  York  and  New  Haven  Railroad, 
is  one  of  the  most  quiet  and  lovely  villages  in  the  land. 
Its  original  name  was  Cupheag,  and  an  Englishman 
named  Fairchild  purchased  the  land  of  the  Poquanuck 
Indians,  and  was  the  first  white  man  vested  with  authority 
over  the  town.  When  the  purchase  was  first  made,  the 
whole  township  comprised  what  have  since  been  known 
as  the  towns  of  Trumbull,  Huntington,  and  Bridgeport, 
the  last  of  which  has  become  a  flourishing  city.  The 
price  paid  for  the  whole  grant  is  not  known,  but  it  is 
on  record  that  a  neighboring  tract  of  land  cost  ten 


J^4  A  Connecticut   Village, 

blankets,  six  coats,  one  kettle,  and  a  small  assortment 
of  hoes,   hatchets,   knives,   and  glasses.     It  was   on 
account  of  similar  outlays,  undoubtedly,  that  the  au 
thorities  of  Stratford,  thirty  years  after  its  settlement, 
voted  that  the  Indians  should  not  "be  permitted  to  plant 
corn    anywhere,  have   their  weapons  mended   by  the 
smith,  nor  be  employed  by  any  citizens  to  look  after 
"  the  horses,  hogs,  and  other  cattle."     The  town  was 
named  in  memory  of  the  English  Stratford,  is  said  to 
have  been  laid  out  after  the  same  fashion,  and,  by  those 
who  have  seen  the  two,  the  American  town  has  been 
pronounced  the  more  beautiful.      The  principal  street 
is  a  mile  long,  runs  north  and  south,  and  is  intersected 
by  a  number  of  others,  all  of  which  are  lined  by  unpre 
tending  houses,  each  one  flanked  by  a  handsome  gar 
den.     The  streets  are  wide,  richly  carpeted  by  a  green 
sward,  and  fringed  on  either  side  by  regular  rows  of 
elm  and  other  trees,  which  are  constantly  composing 
themselves    into   beautiful    pictures;   while   the   rural 
beauty  of  the  place  is  greatly  enhanced  by  two  or  three 
of  those  open  spaces  which  the  old  men  of  New  Eng 
land  love  to  remember,  in  connection  with  their  boy 
hood,  as  the  village  green.      Two  handsome  churches 
with  graceful  spires,  and  another  with  less  pretension, 
loom  up  above  the  sea  of  foliage  ;  there  is  not  a  tavern 
in  the  place,  nor  any  groggeries  or  drinking  saloons ;  a 
local  newspaper  was  never  dreamed  of;  and  the  few 
shops,  whose  owners  do  not  deem  it  necessary  to  hang 
out  any  signs,  are  stocked  with  very  small  and  very 
miscellaneous  assortments  of  merchandise.    Birds  build 


A  Connecticut   Village.  165 

their  nests  in  every  direction,  and  their  sweet  singing 
may  be  heard  through  all  the  hours  of  the  summer  day. 
Each  householder  in  the  town  seems  to  be  the  possessor 
of  a  cow,  and  these  cattle  are  driven  to  pasture  in  the 
morning,  watched  during  the  day,  and  brought  home  at 
sundown  by  a  regular  herdsman ;  and  were  it  not  for 
the  occasional  whistle  of  the  passing  locomotives,  the 
charming  quiet  of  the  place  would  be  profound  and 
unbroken. 

Two  stories  are  told,  illustrative  of  the  repose  which 
reigns  in  Stratford. 

Some  years  ago  a  strange  gentleman  and  his  wife 
arrived  in  the  village  in  their  carriage, -and  after  driving 
from  one  end  of  it  to  the  other  two  or  three  times  with 
out  meeting  a  single  person,  they  became  alarmed,  and 
fancied  that  a  plague  might  have  depopulated  the  place. 
On  further  reflection,  however,  the  stranger  determined 
to  stop  at  one  of  the  pleasant  houses  he  saw  on  every 
side.  He  did  so,  and  the  sound  of  the  knocker  on  the 
door  almost  startled  him  with  its  terrible  noise.  In  due 
time  a  lady  made  her  appearance,  and  was  saluted  with 
the  question  : 

"Can  you  tell  me,  madam,  if  this  town  is  in 
habited?" 

"  Yes,  sir,  it  is,"  replied  the  lady,  "  and  by  way  of 
relieving  your  anxiety  I  will  mention  one  fact.  The 
reason  why  our  streets  are  so  quiet  is  this  :  the  men  of 
the  place  are  all  in  the  fields  at  work,  the  children  are 
at  school,  and  the  housewives  are  at  home  preparing  a 
good  dinner  for  their  families."  The  gentleman  thus 
obtained  a  new  idea,  and  was  satisfied. 


J66  A  Connecticut   Village. 

The  other  is  as  follows:     A  Stratford  gentleman 

one  day  entered  his  house  in  a  troubled  manner,  pale 

and  fainting,  and  earnestly  called  upon  his  wife   and 

daughters  for  some  camphor  or  cologne.     These  things 

were  promptly  administered,  and  after  he   had  fairly 

recovered  his  speech,  his  wife  bent  over  him  and  said : 

"  What  is  the  matter  with  you,  my  dear  ? " 

To  this  the  invalid  replied  :  "  Nothing  very  serious, 

I  hope,  but  while  passing  along  Elm  Street  I  actually 

saw  a  man." 

The  condition  of  things  in  Stratford  has  somewhat 
changed  during  the  past  few  years,  but  the  quiet  and 
repose  of  the  village  are  still  delightful.  Many  of  its 
native  citizens  continue  to  live  in  the  pleasant  homes 
where  they  were  born ;  others  who  were  tempted  to  try 
and  obtain  fortunes  in  New  York  and  other  cities  were 
successful,  and,  like  men  of  sterling  sense,  have  return 
ed  here  to  spend  their  declining  years  in  peace. 

That  such  a  town  as  Stratford  should  afford  any 
thing  in  the  way  of  romantic  personal  histories  was 
hardly  to  be  expected,  but  the  subjoined  story  is  authen 
tic  as  well  as  interesting.  At  the  commencement  of  the 
present  century  a  young  man  made  his  appearance  in 
the  village,  and  spent  a  few  weeks  at  the  tavern  which 
then  existed  to  afford  shelter  to  stage-coach  travellers. 
Whence  he  came  and  what  his  business  none  could 
guess.  Directly  opposite  the  tavern  stood  the  small 
cottage  and  the  forge  of  a  blacksmith  named  Folsom. 
He  had  a  daughter  who  was  the  beauty  of  the  village, 
and  it  was  her  fortune  to  captivate  the  heart  of  the 


A  Connecticut   Village.  167 

young  stranger.  He  told  his  love,  said  that  he  was 
from  Scotland,  that  he  was  travelling  incog.,  but  in  con 
fidence  gave  her  his  real  name,  affirming  that  he  was 
heir  to  a  large  fortune.  She  returned  his  love,  and  they 
were  married.  A  few  weeks  thereafter  the  stranger 
told  his  wife  that  he  must  visit  New  Orleans ;  he  did 
so,  and  the  gossips  of  the  town  made  the  young  wife 
unhappy  by  their  disagreeable  hints  and  jeers.  In  a  few 
months  the  husband  returned,  but  before  a  week  had 
elapsed  he  received  a  large  budget  of  letters,  and  told 
his  wife  that  he  must  at  once  return  to  England,  and 
must  go  alone.  He  took  his  departure,  and  the  gossips 
had  another  glorious  opportunity  to  make  a  confiding 
woman  wretched.  To  all  but  herself  it  was  a  clear 
case  of  desertion  ;  the  wife  became  a  mother,  and  for 
two  years  lived  on  in  silence  and  in  hope.  At  the  end 
of  that  time  a  letter  was  received  by  the  Stratford 
beauty  from  her  husband,  directing  her  to  go  at  once  to 
New  York  with  her  child,  taking  nothing  with  her  but 
the  clothes  she  wore,  and  embark  in  a  ship  for  her  home 
in  England.  On  her  arrival  in  New  York  she  found  a 
ship  splendidly  furnished  with  every  convenience  and 
luxury  for  her  comfort,  and  two  servants  ready  to  obey 
every  wish  that  she  might  express.  The  ship  duly  ar 
rived  in  England,  and  the  Stratford  girl  became  the 
mistress  of  a  superb  mansion,  and,  as  the  wife  of  a 
baronet,  was  saluted  by  the  aristocracy  as  Lady  Samuel 
Sterling.  On  the  death  of  her  husband  many  years 
ago,  the  Stratford  boy  succeeded  to  the  title  and  the 
wealth  of  his  fathers,  and  in  the  last  edition  of  the 


1 68  A  Connecticut   Village. 

"  Peerage  and  Baronetage,"  he  is  spoken  of  as  the  issue 
of  "  Miss  Folsom  of  Stratford,  North  America."  When 
the  late  Professor  Silliman  visited  England  some  years 
since,  he  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  Lady  Sterling  at 
a  dinner  party,  and  was  delighted  to  answer  her  many 
questions  about  her  birthplace  in  Connecticut. 

If  this  paper  were  designed  to  be  a  complete  history 
of  Stratford,  it  would  be  necessary  to  print  many  pages 
about  the  early  struggles  and  subsequent  success  of  re 
ligion  in  this  region.  That  is  out  of  the  question  ;  but, 
on  account  of  the  personal  history  of  one  most  interest 
ing  divine  and  author  connected  with  it,  a  passing 
notice  of  the  Episcopal  Church  in  Stratford  is  indis 
pensable.  It  was  the  first  established  in  Connecticut, 
and  its  founder  was  one  who  left  the  Puritans  to  become 
an  Episcopalian,  and  whose  name  was  Samuel  Johnson. 
He  was  born  at  Guilford,  Connecticut,  October  14, 
1696,  where  were  also  born  his  father  and  grandfather, 
both  men  of  distinction  and  deacons  in  the  Congre 
gational  Church,  while  his  great-grandfather,  who  came 
from  Yorkshire,  England,  was  one  of  the  first  settlers 
of  New  Haven.  He  was  educated  at  the  College  of 
Saybrook,  which  subsequently  found  a  permanent  rest 
ing  place  in  New  Haven,  and  after  the  change  of  loca 
tion,  and  while  only  twenty  years  of  age,  he  became  a 
tutor  in  what  is  now  known  as  Yale  College ;  was  hon 
ored  with  the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts ;  and  was  the 
first  man  who  in  1718  lodged  and  set  up  housekeeping 
in  the  institution.  In  1720  he  became  a  preacher  of 
the  Gospel,  and  was  settled  at  West  Haven  as  a  Con- 


A  Connecticut  Village.  169 

gregationalist.  He  soon  afterwards  became  the  leader 
of  a  party  of  three  or  four  who  pioneered  their  way 
into  the  Episcopal  Church,  and,  resigning  his  charge, 
he  went  to  England  to  obtain  orders,  received  from  Ox 
ford  and  Cambridge  the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts,  and 
in  1723  was  settled  in  Stratford  as  the  first  regularly 
ordained  Episcopal  clergyman  in  the  colony.  At  first 
his  flock  consisted  of  only  thirty  families,  and  the  persecu 
tions  which  he  endured  from  the  Congregationalists  were 
almost  unparalleled.  Some  of  them  went  so  far  as  to  put 
chains  across  their  streets  to  prevent  the  horrible  Epis 
copalians  from  going  to  church,  while  others  would  not 
sell  him  vegetables  and  other  country  produce  for  the 
support  of  his  family.  His  great  ability,  however,  as 
well  as  his  high  character  as  a  man  of  intellect  and  a 
Christian,  overcame  all  these  obstacles,  and  he  was 
triumphantly  successful. 

On  the  arrival  in  this  country  of  Berkeley  (the  Dean 
of  Derry  and  Bishop  of  Cloyne),  in  1729,  the  rector  of 
Stratford  became  his  intimate  friend,  corresponded  with 
him  for  many  years,  introduced  his  works  to  the  literati 
of  America,  made  him  so  interested  in  Yale  College  as 
to  secure  a  present  of  one  thousand  valuable  books  to 
that  institution,  as  well  as  a  present  of  ninety  acres  of 
land  in  Rhode  Island  for  its  benefit.  After  a  contin 
uous  battle  of  twenty  years  in  behalf  of  his  Church,  the 
University  of  Oxford  conferred  upon  our  rector  the 
degree  of  Doctor  of  Divinity,  which  honor  was  followed 
by  many  kind  letters  from  the  best  men  in  England. 
In  1754,  against  his  own  wishes,  but  because  eminent 
8 


lyo  A  Connecticut   Village. 

friends  told  him  it  was  his  duty,  he  accepted  the  presi 
dency  of  the  newly  established  King's  College  in  New 
York  (now  Columbia  College),  where  his  services  were 
invaluable  until  1763,  when  he  returned  to  Stratford  to 
spend  the  remainder  of  his  days  in  ease  and  leisure. 
Here  he  died  on  the  6th  of  January,  1772,  and  lies 
buried  in  the  grave-yard  of  Christ  Church,  where  two 
church  buildings  were  erected  under  his  eye,  and  were 
the  predecessors  of  the  present  tasteful  edifice  occupy 
ing  the  same  site.  On  the  monument  which  commem 
orates  his  death  are  inscribed,  after  a  Latin  inscrip 
tion,  the  following  lines : 

"  If  decent  dignity  and  modest  mien, 
-  The  cheerful  heart  and  countenance  serene  ; 
If  pure  religion  and  unsullied  truth, 
His  ag£s  solace,  and  his  search  in  youth  ; 
If  piety  in  all  the  paths  he  trod, 
Still  rising  vigorous  to  his  Lord  and  God  : 
If  charity  thro'  all  the  race  he  ran, 
Still  willing  well,  and  doing  good  to  man  ; 
If  LEARNING,  free  from  pedantry  and  pride  ; 
If  FAITH  and  VIRTUE,  walking  side  by  side  ; — 
If  well  to  mark  his  being's  aim  and  end, 
To  shine  through  life  a  HUSBAND,  FATHER,  FRIEND, 
If  these  ambition  in  thy  soul  can  raise, 
Excite  thy  reverence,  or  demand  thy  praise  ; — • 
Reader,  ere  yet  thou  quit  this  earthly  scene, 
Revere  his  name,  and  be  what  he  has  been." 

MYLES  COOPER. 

For  a  sketch  of  the  life  of  Doctor  Johnson,  and  an 
eloquent  estimate  of  his  exalted  character  as  the  first 
scholar  of  the  day  in  America,  the  reader  is  referred  to 
a  small  volume,  published  in  1805,  by  Dr.  Thomas  B. 
Chandler,  of  New  Jersey,  while  the  subjoined  list  of  his 


A  Connecticut   Village.  171 

writings  will  afford  an  opportunity  of  estimating  his 
services  as  an  author,  viz.  :  "  Plain  Reasons  for  Con 
forming  to  the  Church  ; "  "  Compendium  of  Logic  and 
Metaphysics  " — printed  by  Franklin  ;  "  Demonstration 
on  the  Reasonableness  and  Duty  of  Prayer ; "  "  Beauty 
of  Holiness  in  the  Worship  of  the  Church  of  England  ; " 
an  English  grammar,  a  Church  catechism,  a  Hebrew 
grammar,  an  English  and  Hebrew  grammar,  and  a 
variety  of  pamphlets  on  theological  and  literary  subjects, 
published  between  the  years  1732  and  1771. 

Another  man  of  note  associated  with  Stratford  was 
William  S.  Johnson,  son  of  Dr.  Samuel.  He  was  bom 
here  October  7,  1727,  graduated  at  Yale  College  in 
1744,  and  was  a  lawyer  of  distinction  and  an  eloquent 
orator.  In  1765  and  1785  he  was  a  delegate  to  the 
Congress  at  New  York,  and  in  1776  an  agent  for  the 
Colony  to  England,  where  he  formed  the  acquaintance 
of  many  leading  men.  In  1772  he  was  judge  of  the 
Connecticut  Supreme  Court  and  a  member  of  the  con 
vention  that  formed  the  Federal  Constitution.  He  was 
also  a  Senator  in  Congress  from  1789  to  1791  ;  received 
from  Oxford  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws ;  and  from 
1792  to  1800  he  was  president  of  Columbia  College, 
New  York,  after  which  he  returned  to  Stratford,  where 
he  died  November  14, 1819,  and  lies  buried  by  the  side 
of  his  distinguished  father. 

As  allusions  have  already  been  made  to  five  genera 
tions  of  the  Johnson  family  of  Stratford,  it  may  here 
be  mentioned,  for  the  sake  of  completeness,  that 
Samuel  William  Johnson,  a  lawyer  and  judge  of  retired 


172  A  Connecticut   Village. 

habits,  was  the  son  of  the  senator,  and  that  his  son, 
William  Samuel  Johnson,  is  the  present  representative 
of  the  family,  who  has  several  brothers  to  participate 
with  him  in  bearing  the  honored  name.  And  this  fact 
brings  us  (as  did  the  courtesy  of  that  gentleman  bring 
the  writer  of  this  chapter)  into  the  Johnson  Library  of 
Stratford.  This  collection  numbers  between  four  and 
five  thousand  volumes,  and  seven  generations  of  highly 
educated  men  have  participated  in  the  labor  of  bringing 
them  together.  It  was  also  enriched  by  contributions 
from  such  men  as  Bishop  Berkeley,  Benjamin  Franklin, 
and  Samuel  Johnson,  the  great  author  of  England.  The 
several  proprietors  of  this  rare  and  truly  precious 
private  library  have  occasionally  given  away  what  we 
might  call  a  swarm  of  books,  but  perhaps  the  most 
graceful  present  of  this  kind  was  one  of  several  hundred 
volumes,  printed  between  the  years  1577  and  1791,  and 
presented  to  Columbia  College  by  the  present  owner. 
The  collection,  as  it  now  stands,  is  especially  rich  in 
theology,  the  early  English  classics,  the  antiquities  of 
England,  the  Greek  and  Latin  authors,  and  in  its  dic 
tionaries,  with  a  rare  sprinkling  of  black  letter  and  El 
zevir  volumes.  Here  may  also  be  found  several  curious 
editions  of  the  Bible  ;  but  perhaps  the  most  curious, 
interesting,  and  valuable  single  volume  is  the  "  Icon 
JBasilike ;  or,  The  Works  of  that  Great  Monarch  and 
Glorious  Martyr,  King  Charles  I.,  both  Civil  and  Sa 
cred  ;  and  Pourtraicture  of  his  Sacred  Majesty  in  his 
Solitudes  and  Sufferings."  The  edition  here  mentioned 
was  printed  at  the  Hague  in  1648,  a  few  days  after  the 


A   Connecticut   Village.  173 

death  of  the  king,  and  hence  its  especial  value.  Those 
acquainted  with  the  work  need  not  be  told  that  the 
proof  is  quite  conclusive  as  to  its  having  been  the 
veritable  production  of  the  king,  though  long  disputed  ; 
that  it  went  through  fifty  editions  in  one  year ;  that 
Hume  declares  it  to  have  led  to  the  restoration  of  the 
royal  family ;  that  it  was  greatly  praised  even  by  Mil 
ton,  the  personal  friend  of  Cromwell ;  that,  as  the  al 
leged  production  of  the  murdered  sovereign,  it  caused 
an  intense  interest  throughout  the  world  ;  and  that  the 
critics  of  the  time  pronounced  it  the  best  specimen  of 
English  writing  then  in  existence.  The  man  whose 
taste  and  learning  are  chiefly  represented  by  this  ad 
mirable  library  was  the  Rev.  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson. 
Here  it  was  that,  after  his  return  from  New  York,  sur 
rounded  by  these  venerable  tomes,  he  lived  the  happy 
and  peaceful  life  of  a  scholar,  and  kept  up  an  extensive 
correspondence  with  the  most  learned  and  eminent  men 
of  England  and  America.  And  that  mass  of  cor 
respondence,  which  is  still  preserved,  with  an  elaborate 
journal  kept  by  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  may,  perhaps,  be 
considered  the  very  cream  of  the  Johnson  library. 
That  portion  of  it  bearing  upon  church  history  has  al 
ready  been  extensively  studied  by  clerical  pilgrims  from 
all  parts  of  the  land  ;  while  that  portion  which  is  of  a 
miscellaneous  character,  addressed  to  the  rector  and 
senator,  is  quietly  awaiting  the  fate  of  all  unpublished 
correspondence  by  men  of  distinction. 

A  desultory  account  of  Stratford,  like  the  present, 
should  not  omit  an  allusion  to  General  David  Wooster, 


174  ^  Connecticut   Village. 

who  was  born  here  in  1711.  He  graduated  at  Yale 
College  in  1738,  served  as  the  captain  of  an  armed 
vessel  in  the  Spanish  war,  as  a  captain  of  militia  in  the 
expedition  against  Louisburg  in  1745,  went  to  France 
with  a  lot  of  prisoners,  and  from  thence  to  England, 
where  he  received  certain  honors,  served  as  command 
ant  of  a  brigade  in  the  French  war,  espoused  the  cause 
of  America  in  1764,  aided  in  defending  New  York,  had 
command  of  our  troops  in  Canada,  where  he  rendered 
important  services,  was  subsequently  made  a  major- 
general  of  the  Connecticut  militia,  and  during  a  skir 
mish  with  the  British  troops  at  the  time  of  their  incur 
sion  to  Danbury  in  1777,  received  a  shot  which  termi 
nated  his  life  in  a  few  days.  He  was  a  brave  officer, 
an  ardent  patriot,  and  a  man  of  the  highest  integrity 
and  virtue. 

But  a  few  additional  words  must  be  devoted  to  the 
Stratford  of  the  present  time.  A  love  of  religion  amid 
of  the  intellectual  and  beautiful  seems  to  permeate  its 
entire  population ;  and  although  its  two  leading  de 
nominations  of  Christians  were  wont  to  battle  valiantly 
for  the  cause  of  truth  and  prejudice  in  the  olden  times, 
the  most  perfect  harmony  now  exists  between  them,  and 
both  alike  deserve  honorable  mention  for  what  they 
have  accomplished.  To  church  people  alone  the  his 
tory  of  the  Congregational  Church  is  quite  as  interest 
ing  as  that  of  the  Episcopal,  but  the  latter  had  the  ad 
vantage  on  the  score  of  general  interest  on  account  of 
its  distinguished  founder.  American  literature  has  also 
been  enriched  by  two  citizens  of  Stratford  now  living, 


A   Connecticut   tillage.  175 

viz.,  Rev.  J.  Mitchell  and  J.  Olney,  Esq.  "The 
Reminiscences  of  Scenes  and  Characters  of  College, 
by  a  Graduate  of  Yale,"  the  work  of  the  former,  is  an 
exceedingly  well  written  volume,  useful  in  purpose  and 
full  of  sound  wisdom  and  Christian  feeling.  And  the 
same  compliment  may  be  paid  to  his  other  productions, 
viz.,  "  Notes  from  over  the  Sea,"  "  My  Mother  ;  or,  Re 
collections  of  Maternal  Influence,"  "  Days  of  Boyhood," 
a  tale  entitled  "  Rachell  Kell,"  and  "The  New  England 
Churches,"  in  which  the  subject  of  Congregationalism 
is  well-nigh  exhausted.  This  gentleman  was  also  for 
many  years  editor  of  the  Christian  Spectator  in  New 
Haven,  and  his  books  were  published  anonymously. 
The  School  Geographies  and  Histories  of  the  latter  are 
well  known  as  having  acquired  an  almost  unequalled 
circulation.  While  the  art  treasures  of  the  town  are 
not  extensive,  there  are  a  few  pictures  here  which  will 
he  found  worth  hunting  up  by  men  of  taste.  In  the 
Johnson  Library  may  be  found  the  best  portrait  extant 
of  Jonathan  Edwards,  a  connection  of  the  family,  paint 
ed  by  or  copied  after  Copley ;  one  of  Rev.  Dr.  John 
son,  also  by  Copley;  one  of  Senator  Johnson,  by 
Stuart ;  and  a  print  of  Samuel  Johnson  of  England, 
after  Reynolds,  which  was  presented  to  Senator  John 
son  by  the  original,  and  pronounced  by  him  the  best 
likeness  ever  executed. 


VOYAGES   AND   TRAVELS. 


MR.  JOHN  FOSTER,  the  most  uncomfortable  person 
of  the  last  two  or  three  centuries,  a  man  who  delighted 
himself  by  elaborating  doleful  essays  on  "  Decision  of 
Character,"  "  Popular  Ignorance,"  and  similar  depress 
ing  subjects,  not  content  with  making  himself  as 
wretched  as  possible  by  sad  consideration  of  the  past 
history  of  the  human  race,  the  present  unhappy  estate 
of  himself  and  every  other  human  being,  and  the  mel 
ancholy  condition  to  which  we  are  all  to  be  reduced 
hereafter,  used  to  torment  himself,  as  the  readers  of  his 
works  may  see,  by  reflecting  despondently  on  the  griefs 
and  woes  of  posterity.  In  more  than  one  place  he  has 
expressed  in  his  habitual  style — a  style,  by  the  way, 
which  is  the  vehicle  of  thoughts  so  gloomy,  and  withal 
so  dead,  that  one  is  reminded  of  a  highly  ornamented 
hearse — his  painful  sense  of  the  hardships  and  labors 
to  be  endured  by  the  people  of  the  twentieth  century. 
Prominent  among  these  prospective  miseries  he  placed 
the  growth — and,  of  course,  he  expected  their  increase 
to  be  in  a  villainous  geometrical  ratio — of  books  of 
8* 


*7&  Voyages  and  Travels. 

travels.  A  man,  says  he,  going  from  one  capital  to 
^  another,  by  ordinary  means  of  conveyance,  is  able  to 
*  see  for  about  a  gunshot  on  each  side  of  the  road.  The 
people  and  their  manners  the  wayfarer  observes  in  the 
stages  and  at  the  taverns  where  he  sleeps.  Then  he 
must  write  a  book.  But,  says  Foster,  still  borrowing 
trouble,  suppose  the  section  of  country  which  the  tourist 
has  seen  to  be  represented  on  a  map  of  the  world,  and 
it  will  be  represented  fairly  by  a  light  pencil-mark. 
Now  consider,  he  goes  on,  the  small  part  of  the  world 
at  present  covered  by  these  pencil-marks ;  consider  the 
nature  of  the  tourist,  and  how  necessary  it  is  to  him  to 
produce  these  volumes  ;  and,  again,  consider  the  enor 
mous  number  of  such  volumes  already  printed,  and 
yet  again  consider,  says  poor  Foster,  getting  unhappier 
every  moment,  consider  the  likelihood  of  improvement 
in  the  means  of  locomotion ;  the  imagination  begins  to 
faint  under  the  idea  of  the  task  to  be  performed  by  our 
miserable  posterity  when  the  whole  round  world  is  just 
newly  pencilled  over. 

In  fact,  however,  we  who  are  the  posterity  in  ques 
tion  seem  to  be  not  staggering  under  our  anticipated 
burden.  Heads  of  families,  we  should  say,  have  ceased 
to  advise  the  young  to  "  peruse  voyages  and  travels," 
and  to  shun  novels,  and  probably  the  last  uncle  has 
presented  the  last  nephew  with  the  last  copy  of  "  Travels 
in  the  Interior  Districts  of  Africa,  by  Mungo  Park," 
which  once  every  Young  Man's  Guide  recommended, 
as  combining  instruction  with  entertainment.  The  army 
of  old-time  tourists  who,  when  they  went  abroad,  took 


Voyages  and  Travels.  179 

blank  books  with  them,  and  made  them  blanker,  and 
then  put  them  into  print,  does  not  now  exist  in  anything 
like  its  old  force.  Mr.  Hepworth  Dixon,  to  be  sure, 
occasionally  "  does  "  a  country,  and  there  is  also  Mr. 
Bayard  Taylor,  who  has  utilized  all  the  kingdoms  of  the 
earth,  and  J.  Ross  Browne  and  G.  Augustus  Sala 
pretty  continually  go  to  and  fro  on  the  globe,  and  wander 
up  and  down  it.  And  of  course  the  Englishman 
travelling  in  the  United  States  regards  the  custom  of 
old  days  as  being  still  so  much  in  force  as  to  warrant 
him  in  writing  an  astonishing  book  of  observations  upon 
the  Yankee,  his  cataract  of  Niagara,  his  Mammoth  Cave, 
his  manners,  his  beasts  of  chase,  and  the  really  aston 
ishing  growth  of  his  towns.  The  Owen  or  Agassiz  of 
these  specimens  of  literature  might  construct  one  of 
them  complete  from  such  a  sample  bit  of  them  as  this, 
for  instance,  which  we  suppose  to  have  been  written  in 
1837,  or  thereabouts.  We  quote  from  memory  :  "  Niles 
is  a  thriving  town,  on  the  St.  Joseph  River,  on  the  bor 
ders  of  the  Potawatamie  territory.  Churches,  a  print 
ing-press,  and  a  theatre  are  now  in  operation  where  but 
ten  years  ago  the  ring  of  the  woodman's  axe  was  rarely 
heard.  We  observed  a  mounted  Indian  riding  down 
the  bluff  and  looking  toward  the  town,  pondering,  per 
haps,  on  the  fate  of  his  race  doomed  to  cruel  extinc 
tion,  and  in  the  streets  we  saw  several  squaws  wearing 
nose-rings  and  other  barbaric  ornaments.  Of  course, 
having  arrived  late  at  the  hotel,  it  was  impossible  to 
procure  supper  after  the  regular  feeding-time,  and  ^ye 
had  to  content  ourselves  by  '  liquoring-up  '  in  the  baa:- 


180  Voyages  and  Travels. 

room  and  eating  a  dry  '  cracker.' "  The  Frenchman, 
too,  occasionally  puts  forth  a  work  of  philosophy  and 
feeling,  exposes  the  want  of  insight  of  his  British  brother, 
felicitates  his  country,  France,  ever  generous  and  mag 
nanimous,  on  having  created  this  wonderful  state,  so 
strong,  so  new,  so  fresh,  which  lays  the  foundations  of 
the  future,  while  Europe  is  engaged  in  patching  and 
sweeping  clean  its  ruins  of  the  past,  and  marvels  at  the 
respect  of  Americans  for  women  ;  he  shows  how  this  is 
accounted  for  by  the  free  institutions  which  Jefferson, 
profoundly  impressed  by  the  ideas  of  France,  planted 
here,  and  how — alas  !  one  must  confess  it — this  respect 
for  these  beings  so  beautiful  but  so  fragile,  so  destitute 
of  thought,  so  without  the  care  of  the  mother,  loved  by 
men  immersed  in  business,  whom  the  stranger  can  see 
to  be  adored  but  without  influence,  unsatisfied,  full  of 
vague  longing — in  fine,  so  unhappy — this  respect  is 
apparent  rather  than  real. 

But,  on  the  whole,  the  readers,  and  consequently 
the  writers,  of  books  of  travel  have  vastly  decreased  in 
numbers  within  twenty-five  or  thirty  years.  Perhaps 
their  books  have  not  absolutely  decreased  in  numbers, 
but  relatively  to  other  books  they  have.  Volumes  upon 
the  grand  tour  are  altogether  out  of  date.  Almost  no 
Americans  even  inform  us,  nowadays,  of  the  condition 
of  Shakespeare's  tomb,  and  describe  Westminster  Ab 
bey,  or  make  reflections  on  the  evils  of  monarchies 
and  dine  with  the  aristocracy  of  England,  or  ramble 
with  us  through  the  galleries  of  continental  cities,  or 
describe  the  Bay  of  Naples  and  the  picturesque  Italian 


Voyages  and  Travels.  181 

'  peasant.  The  "  English  Reader,"  if  it  were  now  to  be 
prepared  for  the  use  of  schools,  would  no  more  con 
tain  its  account  of  the  Grotto  of  Antiparos  than  it 
would  contain  those  extracts  from  Cicero  against 
Verres,  or  its  "  How  long,  O  Catiline  !  wilt  thou  abuse 
our  patience  ?  "  There  is  no  boy  who  now  reads  those 
tales  of  shipwreck  in  the  polar  seas  or  captivity  among 
the  Moors  which  once  were  bought  for  every  Young 
Men's  Library.  We  doubt  if,  among  all  the  readers  of 
the  Boston  Investigator,  any  one  now  buys  M.  Volney's 
evil-intentioned  "  Travels  through  Egypt  and  Syria  in 
the  years  1783,  1784,  and  1785." 

M.  Volney,  by  the  way,  after  telling  us  that  a  small 
sum  of  money  fell  to  him  by  inheritance,  and  that  his 
thirst  for  knowledge  disposed  him  to  spend  it  in  travel 
rather  than  otherwise,  and  that  he  decided  upon  going 
to  the  countries  where  arose  those  religious  customs 
and  ideas  that  have  had  so  much  influence  on  mankind, 
states  that  he  was  confirmed  in  his  resolution  to  pub 
lish  "by  the  difficulties  attending  travelling  in  those 
countries,  which  have  therefore  but  seldom  been  visited, 
and  are  but  imperfectly  known." 

Doubtless  this  remark  of  his  suggests  a  good  part  of 
the  reason  why  this  once  most  popular  of  all  branches 
of  literature  has  so  much  fallen  into  decay.  Mr.  Sew- 
ard  telegraphed  the  other  day  to  a  United  States  Con 
sul  residing  not  far  from  the  pyramids.  The  revolt  in 
Crete  is  detailed  by  the  Hoe  presses  of  Athens.  A 
man  can  count  the  days  required  for  journeying  by  rail 
and  steamship  from  London,  through  the  Pillars  of 


1 82  Voyages  and  Travels. 

Hercules  and  the  Red  Sea,  to  the  East  Indies  and  Fai 
Kathay.  What  country  or  countries  remain  in  which 
there  are  "  difficulties  attending  travelling  ; "  and,  now 
that  young  English  persons  of  both  sexes  "  leave  their 
copies  of  Tennyson  on  the  top  of  Mont  Blanc,"  what 
places  are  there  which  "  have  but  seldom  been  visited, 
and  are,  therefore,  but  imperfectly  known  ? "  Exceed 
ingly  few.  Palgrave  was  able  to  make  a  fine  book 
about  Arabia  a  while  ago  ;  and  the  interior  districts  of 
Africa  since  Mungo  Park  was  there,  if  nobody  knows 
how  many  stupid  books  they  have  furnished  material 
for,  have  also  been  the  subject  of  four  or  five  excellent 
works.  The  springs  of  the  Nile  are  now  discovered 
though  exit  Africa.  Vambery's  remarkable  book  is 
not  to  be  forgotten  either.  And  no  doubt  Turkestan, 
and  Thibet,  and  Japan,  and  Siberia,  if  all  its  tremen 
dous  story  could  be  told,  might  fill  some  volumes  which 
would  be  entertaining  enough  and  would  satisfy  a  good 
deal  of  curiosity.  Besides,  even  half-civilized  and 
savage  mankind  are  worth  studying,  for  man  is  a  prob 
lem  that  cannot  well  be  looked  at  from  too  many  points 
of  view.  But  universal  trade  and  railroads  and  tele 
graphs  have  made  it  so  easy  to  see  strange  countries 
that  there  are  hardly  any  strange  countries  left  to  see, 
and  as  the  age  of  travel  begins,  the  age  of  books  of 
travel  disappears. 

But  this  facility  of  locomotion  and  the  excess  to 
which  the  writing  of  travels  was  once  pushed  cannot  be 
held  the  sole  cause  of  the  result  we  see.  A  fanciful 
man  might  speculate  curiously  whether  the  introspective 


Voyages  and  Travels.  183 

tendencies  of  the  modern  mind  may  not  have  had 
much  to  do  with  diminishing  a  sort  of  literatuie  es 
sentially  objective.  And  a  historian  of  travel-writing, 
adopting  this  theory,  might  show  the  gradual  descent 
from  the  objective  writing  of  Herodotus  in  the  first  age  of 
literature,  or  of  Benjamin  of  Tudela  or  Sir  John  Mande- 
ville  in  the  Middle  ages,  down  through  the  jumble  of 
objective-subjective  in  the  writings  of  those  tourists 
who  record  for  us  their  bills  of  fare  and  no  sooner  get 
from  home  than  they  think  themselves  of  importance 
enough  to  have  their  indigestions  chronicled,  down  fur 
ther  to  travellers  such  in  dead  earnest  as  Sterne  was 
half  in  jest,  whose  journeys  are  sentimental  and  records 
of  their  whims,  or  like  Chateaubriand,  whose  journeys 
are  sentimentalistic  and  full  of  gushing  eloquence. 
Quite  possibly  it  may  be  that  the  study  of  the  micro 
cosm  has  interfered  with  the  study  of  the  macrocosm  ; 
a  century  of  which  Hamlet  is  said  to  be  the  type, 
should  hardly  be  much  inclined  to  go  far  and  wide 
seeking  other  men,  or  women  either,  under  foreign  foul 
collections  of  vapors. 

But  it  is  the  periodical  press  which  has  been  the 
chief  agent  in  driving  the  labored  volume  of  travels  out 
of  the  field.  The  newspapers  send  out  a  correspon 
dent  if  there  is  war  in  Wallachia,  and  another  to  the 
Tyrol  when  war  comes  there,  and  others  to  India  or 
Tennessee  or  the  Crimea,  or  to  Japan  with  the  em 
bassy,  and  another  to  Jamaica  when  the  results  of 
emancipation  are  to  be  studied,  and  to  Bermuda  to  see 
how  coolies  work,  and  to  the  land  of  claret  and  olives 


184  Voyages  and  Travels. 

when  information  is  wanted  as  to  the  French  system  of 
minute  division  of  land  among  heirs.  No  reader  of 
the  Herald  need  be  ignorant  that  the  Russians  drink 
lemon-juice  in  their  tea,  or  that  they  embrace  and  kiss 
their  male  friend  though  he  should  hold  an  official  po 
sition  of  dignity.  What  country,  from  Sable  Island  to 
the  Black  Sea,  has  not  been  put  into  papers  for  "  Har 
per's  Monthly  ? "  Has  not  the  Tribune  resident  cor 
respondents  in  all  quarters  of  the  globe  ?  No  book  on 
England  contains  the  tenth  part  of  what  one  may  read 
in  the  regular  London  correspondence  of  Cincinnati 
Gazettes  and  Chicago  Tribunes ;  yea,  even  from  coun 
tries  dead  and  gone  one  reads  letters,  as,  for  example, 
the  dismal  screeds  that  somebody  sends  to  the  Times 
from  the  late  Confederacy,  to  say  nothing  of  the  Toledo 
Blade,  with  its  correspondent  at  Confedrit  Cross  Roads. 
And,  till  newspapers  that  must  be  rilled  each  day,  and 
magazines  that  must  be  filled  each  month,  shall  be 
abolished,  and  until  the  people  cease  to  thirst  for  im 
mediate*  news  from  every  point,  where  anything  that 
can  be  called  news  is  happening,  we  shall  still  see  the 
world  in  the  journals,  and  keep  our  Hakluyts  on  our 
newspaper  files  and  in  our  cyclopaedias. 


VERSE-MAKING. 


IT  was  once  the  custom  in  many  reviews,  calling 
themselves  Christian  and  civilized,  and  so  regarded 
each  by  its  private  sect  or  following,  to  immolate  at 
least  one  young  poet  quarterly  at  the  shrine  of  stony- 
faced  and  rocky-bosomed  criticism.  It  was  esteemed 
a  charming  diversion,  if  not  an  act  of  religion,  in  the 
days  of  Mr.  GirTord  or  of  Mr.  Wilson  Croker,  to  make 
some  timid  and  feeble  rhymer  ridiculous,  to  put  him 
out  of  countenance  by  merciless  sneering,  and  to 
demonstrate  his  foibles  and  failures  for  the  amusement 
of  a  giggling  public.  Pope  set  the  fashion  of  denounc 
ing  dunces,  and  all  the  writers  who  had  bad  hearts, 
and  could  string  together  ten-syllabled  couplets,  thought 
it  manly  and  vigorous  to  follow  his  somewhat  peevish 
example.  Criticism,  however  purposeless  and  virulent, 
is  apt  to  assume  the  airs  of  an  offended  and  impatient 
morality,  and  to  take  credit  to  itself  for  smiting  re 
morselessly  and  conscientiously.  But  imbecility,  at  least 
when  it  is  inoffensive,  should  be  privileged,  and  pro 
fessional  flaw-picking,  exercised  sheerly  for  the  purpose 
of  giving  pain,  is  no  more  respectable  than  the  profes- 


1 8  6  Verse- Making. 

sional  flogging  and  pickling  which  prevailed  not  long 
ago  in  certain  parts  of  the  United  States.  At  the  same 
time,  while  avoiding  all  personal  application,  we  may 
venture  to  point  out  a  foible  which  is  a  well-marked 
and  not  altogether  an  encouraging  characteristic  of  our 
own  clay,  and  to  suggest  to  the  innumerable  writers  of 
verse  that,  however  much  they  may  be  permitted  to 
sing  for  their  own  sake,  the  world  just  now  has  but 
small  need  of  their  wares.  Goethe  once  boasted  that, 
in  all  his  life,  he  had  "  never  thought  about  thinking," 
and  we  would  enter  a  protest  which  we  are  sure  is 
honest,  and  which  we  think  is  timely,  against  the  mak 
ing  of  verses  for  the  sake  of  verse-making.  Metrical 
indulgence,  both  in  England  and  this  country,  has 
grown  into  an  epidemical  and  inveterate  habit,  not 
cultivated  as  it  should  be,  if  at  all,  in  a  corner,  but 
published  to  all  the  world,  which  is  continually  chal 
lenged  to  admire  endless  variations  of  a  few  themes 
long  ago  worn  threadbare.  Facility  of  execution,  at 
best  a  natural  or  acquired  knack,  is  mistaken  for  gen 
uine  inspiration ;  nor  does  there  seem  to  be  any  pre 
tence  of  considering  whether  the  world  is  in  need  of 
any  addition  to  its  already  large  poetical  stock.  It  is 
with  the  most  sincere  kindness  that  we  take  the  liberty 
of  pointing  out,  particularly  to  the  young,  the  waste  of 
time,  of  strength,  and  of  mental  serenity  which  this 
universal  strumming  involves. 

Twenty  years  ago  there  was  exhibited  in  London  a 
machine,  not  the  human  product  of  a  college,  but 
literally  a  material  machine,  which  made  excellent 


Verse-Making.  187 

Latin  hexameters.  The  unfortunate  inventor  had  spent 
thirteen  precious  years  of  his  life  in  perfecting  "the 
Eureka,"  as  he  called  it.  Without  wasting  our  time  in 
explaining  this  curious  puzzle,  it  is  enough  to  say  that 
it  actually  ground  out  hexameters  which  were  like  those 
of  Virgil  in  some  respects,  but  considerably  unlike  them 
in  others. 

It  seems  to  us  that  it  is  very  much  in  this  way  that 
many  modern  brains  produce  what  its  authors  call 
poetry,  and  its  judicious  critics  verse.  It  is  a  literal 
making.  The  memory  is  full  of  phrases,  the  ear  of 
familiar  quantities ;  fashion  or  accident  supplies  the 
subject,  and  daily  practice  renders  the  construction 
easy.  So  skilful  sometimes  is  this  species  of  metrical 
manufacture,  that  it  is  hard  to  determine  with  accuracy, 
while  we  feel  its  deficiency,  in  what  that  deficiency 
consists.  There  is  a  modest  respectability  which  de 
ceives  the  careless  reader  who  accepts  sound  for  sense, 
without  any  suspicion  of  the  trick  which  is  played  upon 
his  ear.  Coleridge  once  wrote  a  few  verses  of  absolute 
nonsense  in  the  manner  of  Dr.  Darwin,  which  he  read 
to  a  lady,  who  rewarded  him  by  seriously  exclaiming, 
"  Ah,  Mr.  Coleridge,  now  I  see  that  you  are  a  poet." 
This  we  admit  to  be  an  extreme  illustration ;  but  there 
are  thousands  of  rhymers  now  spinning  longs  and 
shorts,  and  sometimes  confounding  them,  whose  work, 
we  must  say  unfortunately,  has  just  sense  enough  in  it 
to  save  it  from  wholesome  and  decisive  condemnation. 
If  they  were  absolute  fools  they  would  soon  be  laughed 
into  silence ;  but  as  their  stanzas  are  to  a  certain  ex- 


i88  Verse-Making. 

tent  rational,  the  good-natured  public  receives  them 
with  a  fatal  affability,  and  has  no  call  to  forgive  a 
mediocrity  which  it  is  too  indolent  or  too  indifferent  to 
detect.  Every  editor  receives  bushels  of  verses  which 
he  might  print,  if  he  had  but  room  for  them,  without 
any  particular  discredit  to  his  taste  or  judgment.  Their 
authors  naturally  do  not  understand  their  rejection. 
"  Is  not  this,"  they  say,  "  as  good  as  Tennyson  ?  Is  it 
not,  at  least,  very  much  like  him  ?  Does  not  this  re 
mind  you  of  Mr.  Browning  ?  Might  not  this  be  mis 
taken  for  one  of  Mr.  Longfellow's  own  productions  ? " 
Of  course  there  is  bitter  disappointment. 

We  readily  admit  that  verse-making  is  an  elegant 
accomplishment,  an  innocent  amusement,  and  a  real 
auxiliary  in  the  education  of  the  mind  to  elevated  habits 
and  a  daily  recognition  of  the  comely  and  ideal  in  spite 
of  the  pertinacious  intrusion  of  the  inevitable  vulgarities 
of  life.  It  is,  or  it  can  be  trained  to  be,  a  protection 
against  those  low  aims  and  selfish  purposes  into  the 
adoption  of  which  we  are  so  easily  betrayed.  As  the 
record  of  our  best  experiences  and  healthiest  discipline, 
as  a  memorandum  of  our  sincerest  resolutions  and  most 
earnest  regrets,  as  a  relief  to  the  sorrow  which  other 
wise  might  too  bitterly  prey  upon  the  mind,  as  a  grate 
ful  tribute  to  love  or  to  affection,  as  the  natural  expres 
sion  of  a  certain  class  of  noble  and  lovely  thoughts, 
verse  may  be  the  readiest  and  most  appropriate  form 
of  recording  so  much  of  our  life  as  we  wish  especially 
to  remember.  It  may  train  the  hand  as  a  fine  land 
scape  trains  the  eye,  and  make  the  best  words  and 


Verse-Making.  189 

phrases  habitual  in  our  conversation.  But  the  chief 
charm  not  less  than  the  chief  utility  of  this  private  verse- 
making  is  in  its  indomitable  privacy,  and  in  the  indig 
nation  and  just  self-estimate  with  which  it  shrinks  from 
publication.  "  I  have  painted  many  bad  pictures,"  said 
a  gentleman  in  our  hearing,  "  but  I  have  never  exhib 
ited  them  ; "  and  there  was  wisdom  in  the  painting  not 
less  than  in  the  privacy.  It  was  well  to  paint — it  was 
well  also  to  conceal ;  it  is  well  to  write  verse — it  may 
be  excellent  to  keep  it  in  one's  portfolio,  to  be  resolute 
against  sending  it  to  the  newspapers,  to  be  chary  of 
reading  it  to  the  best  beloved  and  most  patient  of 
friends.  It  is  certainly  no  argument  against  the  valid 
ity  of  any  composition  that  it  embodies  thoughts  and 
feelings  which,  though  novel  to  the  individual,  are  yet 
common  to  the  race ;  but  this  consideration  diminishes 
the  necessity  and  propriety  of  formal  publication,  and 
should  warn  us  against  the  sheer  vanity  of  parading 
truisms  which,  however  fine  and  familiar,  are  truisms 
still.  It  is  the  secret  of  poetical  vitality  that  it  expresses 
what  the  majority  of  men  have  felt,  and  after  one  happy 
spirit  has  found  fit  words  and  music  for  the  general 
thought,  a  mockery  of  the  original  song  becomes  easy 
to  hundreds  who  sing  from  a  recollection  of  what  has 
pleased  them,  and  ape  the  minstrel  airs  of  the  Byron 
of  yesterday  or  of  the  Tennyson  of  to-day.  It  is  won 
derful  how  much  clever  journey-work  of  this  kind  is 
performed,  and  from  one  point  of  view  it  is  encouraging, 
for  the  prevalence  of  this  accomplishment  does  indicate, 
we  are  free  to  admit,  a  degree  of  popular  refinement, 


190  Verse-Making. 

and  even  a  good  deal  of  appreciative  taste.  But  there 
is  nothing  new  in  it.  We  suppose  that  there  was  a 
mob  of  gentlemen  in  Rome  who  wrote  easily,  as  we 
know  that  there  was  in  England  in  the  days  of  Dryden. 
But  schools,  magazines,  newspapers,  have  made  this 
poetical  imitation  cheap  and  common,  while  the  passion 
for  printing  has  kept  pace  with  the  multiplied  mechan 
ical  facilities  of  printing — the  power-press  being  re 
sponsible  for  thousands  of  volumes  which  nothing  can 
save  from  oblivion,  and  which  represent  more  heart 
burning,  more  disappointment,  and  more  ludicrous  self- 
complacency  than  we  care  to  compute.  Poetry  has 
grown  to  be  like  photography.  We  have  all  one's 
friends  and  acquaintances  in  our  albums  in  their  holi 
day  raiment  and  with  a  perpetual  putting  on  of  their 
best  looks  ;  and  altogether  they  are  not  worth  so  much 
to  us  as  some  old  portrait  of  some  unknown  man  or 
woman  long  ago  dead,  the  painter  of  which  knew  the 
secret  of  avoiding  that  air  of  conscious  propriety  which 
no  sitter  before  the  camera  can  put  off.  There  is  no 
fault  to  be  found  with  the  photograph  except  the  para 
doxical  one  that  it  is  so  extremely  like  that  it  is  not 
like  at  all.  It  is  equally  hard  to  say,  sometimes,  why 
or  in  what  poetical  disciples  are  not  the  equals  of  their 
masters ;  but  the  mysterious  vice  of  imitation  makes  us 
indifferent  to  their  best  stanzas  and  deprives  their 
finest  tunes  of  the  charm  of  sincerity.  Byron  said  of 
Mr.  Sotheby  that  he  had  imitated  all  the  poets  of  his 
time,  and  had  occasionally  beaten  all  his  models ;  yet 
a  verse-maker  more  entirely  forgotten  than  Mr.  Sotheby 
we  cannot  at  this  moment  remember. 


Verse- Making.  191 

We  protest,  in  conclusion,  that  we  have  no  quarrel 
with  the  cacoethes  scribcndi,  which  we  believe  may  often 
be  turned  to  good  account.  It  is  from  the  folly  of 
printing  or  of  attempting  to  print  that  we  would  good- 
naturedly  dissuade  hundreds  of  estimable  persons. 
The  young  gentleman  who  can  make  a  clever  sketch 
does  not  send  it  to  the  Artists'  Exhibition.  The  young 
lady  who  can  play  tolerably  well  a  concerto  of  Beetho 
ven  does  not  advertise  a  concert  at  the  Academy.  The 
best  declaimer  of  the  "  private  theatricals  "  does  not 
apply  to  Mr.  Wallack  for  an  engagement.  If  we  have 
amateur  fiddlers  and  painters  and  pianists  content 
with  strictly  domestic  glory,  why  may  we  not  have 
amateur  versifiers  building  the  lofty  rhyme  without  the 
least  ambition,  and  sending  their  sonnets  to  the  seclu 
sion  of  their  desks,  or  to  the  albums  of  their  gentle  if 
not  judicious  friends  ?  It  may  be  pleasant  to  print, 
but  it  is  also  pleasant  to  burn ;  and  to  those  who  have 
never  experienced  the  latter  gratification,  we  cordially 
commend  the  experiment 


SOMETHING  ABOUT  MONUMENTS. 


LET  us  assume  that  about  one-half  of  the  memorial 
buildings  which  it  is  now  proposed  to  erect  within  the 
United  States  will  be  built  during  the  next  few  years. 
It  appears,  then,  that  many  American  cities  and  villages, 
now  somewhat  bare  of  other  ornament  than  wayside 
trees,  will  either  be  adorned  by  good  buildings  or  dis 
figured  by  very  bad  ones,  and  that  many  cemeteries  will 
either  gain  their  first  good  monuments  or  be  more  than 
ever  burdened  by  those  which  are  poor  and  tame.  For 
it  is  difficult  to  build  a  monument  of  negative  merit. 
Such  buildings,  as  they  have  no  utilitarian  character, 
must  be  truly  beautiful,  or  they  are  ugly  and  hurtful ; 
like  statues,  they  must  be  noble,  or  they  are  worthless. 
And  there  is  a  necessity,  similar  and  almost  as  positive, 
of  great  artistic  excellence  in  those  buildings  which  unite 
a  practical  use  with  their  monumental  purpose. 

It  will  be  well,  therefore,  if  those  who  intend  to  give 
money  or  time  to  build  monuments  will  give  a  little 
thought  on  the  subject  as  well.  We  Americans  are  not 
so  sure  of  ourselves  in  artistic  enterprises  that  we  can 
afford  to  omit  the  common  precaution  of  thinking  about 
9 


194  Something  about  Monuments. 

the  work  we  mean  to  do.  Good  monuments  are  not  so 
plenty  anywhere  in  the  world  that  habit  has  grown  to 
be  second  nature,  and  that  monuments  in  the  future  will 
somehow  be  good  also.  But,  in  both  these  cases,  the 
converse  is  true.  Of  thousands  of  sepulchral  and  com 
memorative  monuments  built  during  the  last  three 
hundred  years  in  Europe,  statues,  triumphal  arches, 
columns,  temples,  obelisks,  scarce  one  in  a  thousand  is 
good.  Out  of  hundreds  of  architectural  enterprises 
brought  to  some  conclusion  in  America,  scarce  one  in  a 
hundred  has  been  even  reasonably  successful.  There 
is  no  undertaking  for  which  most  people  in  the  United 
States  are  less  ready  than  this  of  building  the  monu 
ments  which  they  earnestly  desire  to  build — monuments 
to  their  townsmen,  college-mates,  or  associates,  who 
have  fallen  in  the  war — monuments  to  the  more  cele 
brated  of  our  military  heroes — monuments  to  the 
honored  memory  of  our  dead  President. 

Peculiar  difficulties  will  surround  and  hinder  these 
undertakings,  because  nearly  all  these  proposed  memo 
rials  will  be  built,  if  at  all,  by  associations  j  few  by  pri 
vate  persons.  When  a  gentleman  of  average  intelli 
gence  wishes  to  erect  a  monument  to  his  brother  or 
friend,  there  is  a  reasonable  chance  that  he  will  employ 
an  architect  or  sculptor  of  reputation  and  professional 
ambition,  even  if  not  of  the  first  artistic  skill,  and  so 
get  a  memorial  that  neither  artist  nor  employer  need  be 
ashamed  of.  But  there  is  much  less  chance  of  this  in 
the  case  of  action  by  a  community  or  association.  If  a 
city  or  society  employ  an  artist,  without  experimenting 


Something  about  Monuments.  195 

with  a  "competition,"  they  very  seldom  select  the  best 
or  even  one  among  the  best  of  the  artists  within  their 
reach ;  political  influence,  private  friendship,  personal 
popularity,  accidental  availability,  or  temporary  popular 
favor,  always  interfere  to  govern  the  choice.  If  they 
resort  to  competition  the  result  is  not  practically  differ 
ent  ;  for,  supposing  the  most  absolutely  fair  and  careful 
consideration  by  the  judges  of  the  submitted  designs, 
and  supposing  the  submission  of  a  great  number  of  good 
designs,  what  likelihood  is  there  that  the  judges  are  fit 
to  judge  ?  How  many  committees  of  management,  or 
boards  of  trustees,  or  building  committees  with  power, 
contain  each  a  majority  of  men  who  understand  the 
complex  and  many-sided  art  of  ornamental  architecture  ? 
How  many  persons  are  there  in  the  land,  not  professed 
architects  or  sculptors,  who  can  select  the  best  among 
twenty  or  ten  designs,  each  design  illustrated  only  by 
formal  and  technical  drawings,  or  by  these  aided  by  a 
fancifully  colored  and  shaded  "  perspective  view  "  of  a 
building  which  it  is  proposed  to  erect?  It  is  not  enough 
to  have  "good  taste" — to  have  a  correct  natural  feeling 
for  beauty  of  form,  or  to  be  accustomed  to  drawings. 
No  man  is  at  all  fit  to  pick  out  one  design  among  many, 
unless  he  has  some  knowledge  of  what  has  been  and 
of  what  can  be  done  in  actual  marble,  stone,  and  bronze. 
There  is  apt  to  be  a  gentleman  on  every  committee  who 
has  travelled  in  Europe,  and  who  gets  great  credit  for 
knowledge  and  judgment,  and  great  influence  over  his 
colleagues  on  that  account.  But  that  gentleman  must 
give  proof  of  a  better  than  guide-book  knowledge  of 


196  Something  about  Monuments. 

what  he  has  seen,  and  of  a  less  confused  memory  than 
most  travellers  bring  home,  and  of  having  bought  pho 
tographs  of  the  best  buildings  instead  of  those  most 
beloved  by  valets  de  place,  before  he  can  be  considered 
an  authority  by  sensible  stayers-at-home.  It  will  often 
be  better  if  the  judges  will  decide  by  lot — as  judges 
have  been  known  to  do — among  the  designs  laid  before 
them.  There  will  then  be  a  reasonable  chance  that 
they  accept  the  best  design,  which  chance  dwindles 
indefinitely  when  most  committees  of  selection  attempt 
to  select. 

Private  tombstones  are  not  included  in  the  class  of 
monuments  we  are  considering.  But  there  is  one  sim 
ple  and  not  necessarily  expensive  kind  of  monument 
which  is  often  used  for  a  private  tombstone,  and  which 
will  answer  as  well  for  many  other  occasions,  namely, 
the  obelisk.  The  word  means  any  object  of  the  well- 
known  shape,  square  in  plan,  higher  than  thick,  grad 
ually  diminishing  in  size  from  the  base  upward,  until 
the  gradual  taper  suddenly  ends  at  a  sharp  edge,  and 
a  square  pyramid  with  much-inclined  sides  terminates 
the  whole.  The  form  is  wrongly  used  in  such  cases  as 
Bunker  Hill  Monument,  because  so  large  and  expen 
sive  a  building  can  be  much  more  effective  and  beauti 
ful  in  another  form ;  the  famous  monument  named  has 
the  one  merit  only  of  being  likely  to  endure  a  long 
time.  It  is  wrongly  used  in  such  cases  as  the  monu 
ment  at  Munich  to  the  Bavarians  who  fell  in  Napoleon's 
Russian  campaign,  because  bronze  cannot  be  more 
foolishly  used  than  by  being  cast  into  flat  plates,  and 


Something  about  Monuments.  197 

so  built  up  into  a  hollow  square  tower,  and  the  cannon 
which  were  melted  to  make  this  monument  would  have 
been  better  employed  if  they  had  been  piled  in  pairs 
like  a  child's  corn-cob  house.  The  obelisk  should 
always  be  a  monolith,  a  single  block  of  granite ;  and  in 
that  case  it  is  not  a  contemptible  ambition  to  get  your 
obelisk  as  large  as  possible,  and  pay  largely  for  quarry 
ing,  transporting,  and  setting  up  a  great  stone.  It 
would  not  be  a  work  of  fine  art,  but  it  would  be  a  labor 
of  love  and  a  worthy  work  for  a  city,  to  try  to  get  out 
of  American  quarries  a  rival  of  the  Egyptian  Obelisk  at 
Paris,  red  syenite,  seventy  feet  high,  and  half  a  million 
pounds  in  weight ;  or  the  equal  of  the  yet  vaster  one  at 
Rome  ;  or  one  such  as  a  czar  might  have  had,  accord 
ing  to  the  story,  a  hundred  feet  high,  had  not  his  work 
men  obeyed  orders  too  literally.  But  the  purpose  of 
an  obelisk  is  not  all  fulfilled  when  it  is  smoothed  and 
set  up.  The  Egyptian  idea  of  this  monument  was  the 
idea  of  an  excellent  place  for  inscriptions.  They 
covered  their  obelisks  with  their  picture-writing,  from 
base  to  summit.  Not  as  the  Worth  Monument  in  New 
York  carries  the  names  of  battles,  cut  in  raised  letters, 
at  great  expense  ;  not  as  the  same  ugly  structure  carries 
its  bas-reliefs,  and  "  trophies  of  arms,"  in  cast  bronze  ; 
but  simply  cut  into  the  smooth  face  of  the  granite,  these 
inscriptions  can  be  seen  from  afar,  and  will  remain  for 
ever.  The  obelisk  shares  with  the  pyramid  the  honor 
of  being  an  emblem  of  eternity.  The  granite  monolith 
is  indestructible  by  time,  and  nearly  so  by  the  hand  of 
man.  Cut  to-day  your  inscription,  half  a  volume  long, 


198  Something  about  Monuments. 

on  the  four  smooth  faces  of  a  monolithic  obelisk  of 
hard  granite,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  three  thousand 
years  any  more  than  one  year  should  efface  the  letters. 
Almost  all  forms  of  monument  that  have  been  sanc 
tioned  by  the  use  of  ages,  and  are  in  themselves  excel 
lent,  are  more  or  less  associated  with  sculpture.  And 
memorial  sculpture  is,  of  course,  generally  portraiture. 
It  will  be  found  that  most  of  those  monumental  forms 
which  are  the  best  and  the  most  universally  loved,  were 
originally  intended  for  the  reception,  protection,  and 
exhibition  of  portrait  statuary ;  such,  for  instance,  is 
the  monument  in  Trinity  Church-yard,  New  York,  in 
memory  of  those  who  died  in  British  prison-ships  dur 
ing  the  Revolutionary  War.  It  is  a  canopy  of  four 
Gothic  arches,  raised  upon  a  high  base,  and  surmount 
ed  by  a  tall  spire.  It  is  pleasing  in  outline  and  in 
detail,  but  the  open  canopy  is  blank  and  empty,  noth 
ing  being  seen  through  its  arches  but  the  trees  beyond. 
The  original  type  of  this  form  of  monument  is  found  in 
those  canopied  tombs  of  the  Gothic  time,  so  numerous 
once  in  northern  churches,  still  so  numerous  in  Italy 
both  in  churches  and  in  the  open  air.  And,  looking 
back  to  these,  the  models — models,  also,  of  all  artistic 
excellence — we  find  the  canopy  put  to  use,  covering 
nearly  always  that  modification  of  the  ancient  sarco 
phagus  known  as  the  altar  tomb.  These  tombs  vary  in 
style  and  character  with  the  different  ages  of  the  art, 
but  the  typical  form  is  a  sarcophagus  two  or  three  feet 
high,  long  enough  to  receive  a  life-sized  effigy,  and  wide 
enough  for  one  such  effigy  or  for  two.  Upon  the  slab 


Something  about  Monuments.  199 

forming  the  cover  was  laid  the  figure  of  the  dead,  as  if 
asleep,  the  head  upon  a  round  pillow,  the  feet  together, 
and  often  resting  upon  a  lion  or  hound,  or  else  crossed 
one  over  the  other,  the  hands  brought  together  as  in 
prayer.  These  effigies  were  sometimes  carved  in  marble 
or  stone,  sometimes  cast  in  bronze.  The  sides  of  the 
tomb  were  decorated  with  heraldic  devices  or  with 
figure  sculpture  representing  incidents  in  the  life  of  the 
deceased,  or,  more  simply,  with  little  arcades  or  with 
tracery.  This  representation  of  the  figure  as  in  placid 
and  motionless  sleep  is  perfectly  appropriate  and  right. 
It  has  been  felt  by  the  best  sculptors  of  our  own  time 
to  be  the  most  fitting  form  for  memorial  statues,  and, 
with  the  revival  of  mediaeval  architecture  in  Europe, 
the  sarcophagus  and  effigy  have  been  restored  to  use. 
It  is  hard  for  modern  sculptors  to  retain  the  composed 
stillness  of  the  early  statues ;  the  figure  must  be  less 
stiff  to  suit  modern  notions  of  gracefulness,  and  much 
of  the  pathos  and  dignity  of  the  old  work  is  lost  when 
the  change  is  made.  Baron  Marochetti's  statue  of  the 
Princess  Elizabeth,  daughter  of  Charles  I.,  on  the 
tomb  erected  to  her  memory  by  Queen  Victoria,  is  one 
of  the  loveliest  portrait  statues  of  modern  times ;  but, 
lovely  as  it  is,  it  is  open  to  the  objection  that  it  has  too 
much  action  for  the  effigy  on  a  tomb.  In  some  modern 
tombs  in  Germany,  the  carefully  modelled  statues  are 
made  ridiculous  because  couched  upon  an  elaborate 
mattress  and  pillow,  and  because  posed  in  different 
attitudes  of  uneasy  sleep. 

Many  tombs  remain  to  us  from  the  best  times  of  art 


2OO  Something  about  Monuments. 

without  the  life-size  effigy  on  the  top,  but  covered  with 
a  heavy  stone,  figured  only  with  a  cross  and  sacred 
monogram,  but  having  the  sides  panelled,  and  each 
panel  filled  with  sculpture  in  relief.  This  plan  has  also 
been  followed  in  modern  times,  in  cases  where  the 
portrait  statue  was  not  to  be  had,  as  in  the  case  of 
soldiers  who  have  died  away  from  home,  leaving  no 
sufficient  material  from  which  a  portrait  could  be  made. 
But,  as  we  have  said  above,  memorial  sculpture  will 
generally  be  portraiture.  No  other  casting  or  carving 
can  be  so  fitting  as  a  likeness  of  the  dead  whom  we 
wish  to  remember  and  honor. 

The  tombs  of  the  Scala  family  at  Verona,  deservedly 
celebrated  as  the  most  perfect  monuments  known  to  us, 
have  the  sarcophagus  and  effigy,  as  was  customary  at 
the  time,  but  also  the  statue  of  the  dead  chief  as  in  life. 
The  figure  on  the  stone  coffin  is  clothed  in  the  long 
gown  of  peace,  and  wears  a  simple  fillet  around  the 
head.  The  sides  of  the  sarcophagus  are  carved  with 
incidents  in  the  life  of  the  dead  man.  A  noble  four- 
arched  canopy,  resting  on  slender  shafts,  is  raised  above 
it,  and  the  arches  support  a  square,  steep  roof  or  spire, 
which  is  truncated,  and  bears  upon  the  flat  top  a  small 
equestrian  statue  of  the  chief  in  his  armor  of  battle. 
These  tombs,  or  the  best  two,  those  of  Can  Grande  and 
Can  Mastino  della  Scala,  are  as  perfect  in  design  and 
execution  of  details  as  in  general  feeling,  and  are  mod 
els  of  excellence  in  monumental  work. 

It  should  be  observed,  though,  that  these  monu 
ments,  consisting  of  the  sarcophagus  and  recumbent 


Something  about  Monuments.  201 

figure,  are  designed  for  tombs  proper — designed,  that 
is,  to  be  placed  over  or  to  contain  the  body  itself. 
They  are  not  suitable  for  memorials,  merely,  to  be  erect 
ed  in  memory  of  one  who  lies  elsewhere.  There  is  a 
certain  difficulty  in  fitting  any  monumental  building,  if 
of  the  nature  of  a  tomb,  to  this  purpose.  No  structure 
yet  proposed  is  as  suitable  as  a  life-sized  portrait  statue, 
erect  or  in  sitting  posture.  The  difficulty  is,  of  course, 
to  get  the  statue.  The  cost  may  not  be  an  objection. 
Money  can  be  raised  to  pay  for  the  noblest  figure,  in 
bronze  or  marble,  of  McPherson,  or  Wadsworth,  or 
Stevens,  but  who  is  the  artist  that  is  to  carve  it? 
There  are  one  or  two  sculptors  in  the  country  who  have 
approved  ability,  and  they  should  be  kept  busy  for  the 
five  years  to  come  modelling  nothing  but  portraits,  that 
we  may  rightly  remember  our  gallant  dead.  That  they 
should  be  left  to  waste  their  time  on  fancies  and 
"ideals"  proves  a  radical  deficiency  somewhere  in  the 
glorious  laws  of  supply  and  demand. 

The  need  of  statues  of  eminent  soldiers  suggests 
inevitably  the  apropriateness  to  this  need  of  equestrian 
statues.  And  in  connection  with  this  theme,  as  the 
bronze  horsemen  at  Rome,  at  Venice,  and  at  Padua 
occur  to  the  mind,  the  need  of  some  knowledge  on  the 
part  of  our  people  of  what  other  people  have  done  to 
honor  their  illustrious  dead  becomes  evident.  Cannot 
something  be  done  to  reproduce  by  a  carefully  made 
cast — as  was  done  for  the  Sydenham  Crystal  Palace 
Company — the  great  statues  of  Coleone  and  Gattame- 
lata  ?  When  shall  we  learn  that  the  way  to  teach 


202  Something  about  Monuments. 

people  art  is  to  show  it  to  them  ?  One  great  work  of 
art  is  worth  a  thousand  lectures  on  art.  If  the  lectures 
also  are  good,  they  will  be  better  when  the  work  of  art 
is  present  to  enforce  their  doctrine. 

Some  of  the  great  colleges  propose  to  build  memo 
rials  to  their  graduates  who  have  fallen  in  the  war  for 
the  national  life.  It  seems  that  one  of  these  great  col 
leges  has  put  head  and  heart  to  the  consideration  of 
the  matter,  for  the  rational  and  worthy  conclusion  is  ar 
rived  at  to  build  a  hall  for  her  living  alumni  in  honor 
of  the  dead.  A  good  building  thus  serving  each  pres 
ent  generation,  and  full  of  memories  of  a  past  genera 
tion  of  heroes  ;  greeting  every  graduate  who  enters  to 
share  in  literary  or  social  festivity  with  welcome  from  a 
noble  past ;  holding  up,  within  and  without,  the  names, 
to  honor,  of  good  men  and  true,  who  have  gone  before — 
such  a  building  would  certainly  be  better  than  any  huge 
pile  erected  to  memory  only.  But  it  must  be  a  good 
building.  It  must  be  a  noble  building.  Every  memo 
rial  must  have  these  two  characteristics,  or  it  is  worth 
less  ;  it  must  be  rich  and  ornamental,  and  even  pro 
fusely  decorated ;  and  it  must  be  built  to  last  forever. 
A  plain  building,  well  fitted  to  its  purpose,  and  intelli 
gently  designed,  such  as  would  make  a  good  alumni 
hall,  would  not  serve  for  a  memorial.  There  must  be 
the  evidences  of  lavish  expense  of  money,  all  well 
spent  indeed,  but  also  J reely  spent,  of  beauty  sought  for 
itself,  and  ornament  loved  for  its  own  sake,  and  used  to 
dignify  the  building.  Then  there  must  be  durability  ; 
of  course  no  public  monument  is  to  be  allowed  to  rival 


Something  about  Monuments.  203 

those  wooden  head-boards  which  are  still  set  up  in 
German  village  grave-yards;  the  Harvard  memorial 
should  stand  as  firmly  as  Bunker  Hill  Monument 
itself. 

Another  of  the  great  colleges  desires  and  hopes  to 
build  a  new  and  worthy  chapel,  and  it  is  proposed  to 
add  to  the  plan  of  such  a  chapel  some  cloister  or  ante- 
chapel  which  shall  afford  a  place  for  private  memorials, 
tablets,  memorial  windows,  and  mural  monuments. 
There  is  the  same  requirement  here  of  heavy  cost  to 
make  a  worthy  building,  and  this  is  true  to  even  a 
greater  extent  than  in  the  former  case,  for  this  church 
and  memorial  combines  in  itself  the  most  honorable 
functions  of  a  building. 

In  another  case  a  campanile  has  been  proposed,  a 
tall  tower  within  which  a  gradual  stairway  or  inclined 
plane  should  ascend  continually  from  base  to  summit — 
those  who  have  ascended  the  great  bell-tower  of  St. 
Mark,  in  Venice  Square,  will  remember  the  slow  ascent 
to  the  belfry  chamber — the  walls  of  the  stairway  to  be 
incrusted  with  the  tablets  in  memory  of  the  dead.  And 
other  forms  of  building  have  been  and  will  be  proposed. 
We  return  to  our  first  request,  and  ask  the  American 
people  to  think  a  little  of  all  these  things,  and  see  to  it 
that  their  willingly-given  money  shall  be  well  spent. 
No  afterthought  will  avail. 


OUR  LOVE  OF  LUXURY. 


MANY  republicans  are  apt  to  think  the  free  spend 
ing  of  money  one  of  the  essential  attributes  of  royalty. 
The  fact  is,  however,  that  in  this  age  wild  and  reckless 
expenditure,  without  rhyme  or  reason  in  it,  is  now  more 
frequently  seen  in  republican  circles  than  in  royal  or 
aristocratic  ones.  Until  within  the  last  forty  years  the 
wealthiest  class  in  the  greater  portion  of  the  civilized 
world  has  always  been  the  landholding  class,  and  one 
of  the  peculiarities  of  this  class  has  been  the  uniformity 
and  even  monotony  of  the  lives  of  its  members.  Their 
income  was  generally  fixed  or  varied  very  slightly  from 
year  to  year.  They  were  exposed  to  no  striking  or 
extraordinary  vicissitudes  ;  most  of  the  calamities  which 
afflicted  other  people,  except  wars  and  revolutions,  did 
not  affect  them.  The  calm  of  their  existence  and  the 
certainty  and  invariability  of  their  revenues  were,  of 
course,  very  favorable  to  the  formation  of  fixed  habits, 
of  fixed  ways  of  dressing,  eating,  going  about,  and 
spending  money,  which  naturally  came  down  from 
generation  to  generation.  The  result  was  that  they 
were  not  on  the  whole,  an  extravagant  class.  They 


206  Our  Love  of  Luxury. 

have  in  most  countries  become  impoverished,  but  only 
in  one  or  two,  Ireland  and  Poland,  through  sheer  waste 
of  money.  In  others  they  have  been  borne  down  by 
political  troubles,  and  by  the  difficulty  of  providing  for 
the  younger  members  of  families,  owing  to  their  rigid 
exclusion  from  the  privilege  of  earning  their  own  bread 
by  any  kind  of  honest  labor  except  military  service. 
Everything  considered,  we  believe  that  the  landed 
aristocracy  of  old  countries  would  be  found  to  have 
been  on  the  whole  a  careful,  prudent,  and  thrifty  body 
of  persons,  resisting  the  influences  of  idleness,  of  im 
perfect  education,  and  the  temptation  to  display  as  a 
means  of  impressing  "  the  lower  orders  "  with  great 
persistence  and,  on  the  whole,  great  success. 

It  has,  however,  ceased  to  be  the  richest  class  of 
the  community.  The  English  lord  or  Russian  prince 
is  no  longer  the  fat  goose  which  the  Continental  hotel- 
keepers  long  for  and  love  to  pluck.  The  animal  now 
generally  presents  himself  in  the  shape  of  an  American 
or  English  cotton-spinner  or  contractor  or  inventor  or 
trader.  But  then  the  rich  European  of  the  commercial 
class  is  a  good  deal  influenced  in  his  mode  of  spending 
his  money  by  the  example  of  his  aristocratic  neighbors. 
Of  late  years  the  landed  aristocracy,  finding  they  were 
ceasing  to  be  the  richest  portion  of  the  community,  and 
that  in  mere  external  display,  whether  of  equipages  or 
clothes  or  furniture  or  plate,  large  numbers  of  people 
who  have  made  their  money  in  trade  find  no  difficulty 
in  outshining  them,  have  affected  great  sobriety  in  all 
these  particulars.  A  duke's  carriage  and  harness  are 


Our  Love  of  Luxury.  207 

now  pretty  sure  to  be  amongst  the  plainest  to  be  seen 
in  any  crowd  of  equipages ;  and  the  duke  himself,  in 
stead  of  going  about  in  pink  or  blue  satin,  belaced, 
beruffled,  and  bespangled  as  his  great-grandfather  did, 
is  probably  one  of  the  most  quietly  dressed  men  to  be 
seen  in  street  or  park. 

Of  course  this  influence  of  the  aristocracy  of  birth 
is  only  an  imperfect  one  ;  on  the  Continent  particularly, 
where  the  line  between  the  nobles  and  bourgeoisie  is 
strongly  drawn  and  cannot  be  rubbed  out  even  by 
wealth,  it  is  very  imperfect,  but  still  it  exists.  More 
over,  it  is  so  difficult  in  the  Old  World  to  make  a  large 
fortune  that  very  few  men  do  it  without  undergoing  a 
good  deal  of  discipline  and  chastening  in  the  process, 
and  without  having  their  imaginations  tamed,  their 
desires  cooled,  and  their  nerves  a  little  shaken,  so  that 
when  they  reach  the  summit  of  their  ambition  they  are 
apt  to  be  willing  enough  to  sit  down  and  live  as  they 
have  always  lived.  In  America,  however,  men  reach 
great  wealth  every  year  in  the  full  vigor  of  their 
powers,  without  having  any  models  before  their  eyes 
for  imitation,  and  without  having  lost  on  the  way  a 
particle  of  their  energy,  and  with  an  untamable  desire 
to  "  enjoy  their  money."  This  is  generally  no  easy 
matter,  and  the  devices  by  which  they  seek  to  extract 
pleasure  from  "  the  pile  "  are  amongst  the  most  amus 
ing  and  singular  phenomena  of  our  time,  and  it  is  the 
oddity  of  these  devices,  particularly  as  practised  in  this 
city,  and  the  somewhat  lavish  expenditure  of  money  by 
Americans  travelling  in  Europe,  which  have  created 


208  Our  Love  of  Luxury. 

and  spread  abroad  the  notion  so  prevalent  both  here 
and  abroad  that  Americans  are  a  wildly  extravagant 
people.  This  impression  is  strengthened,  too,  by  the 
dismal  outcry  of  one  of  our  leading  newspapers  every 
year  over  the  enormous  amount  we  spend  in  "  foreign 
luxuries,"  silks,  wines,  and  so  forth,  and  the  sapient 
assertion  which  it  makes  year  after  year  that  we  are 
running  in  debt  to  Europe  for  them. 

Now  the  fact  is  that,  judged  by  the  only  rational 
test  of  economy,  the  difference  between  income  and 
expenditure,  the  Americans  are  the  most  economical 
people  in  the  world.  There  is  a  popular  fallacy  that 
extravagance  in  living  is  good  for  trade,  and  that  the 
poor  are  helped  by  rich  men's  spending  a  good  deal 
in  food  and  drink  and  clothes  and  plate.  Every  cent 
spent  in  any  of  these  things  is,  however,  on  the  con 
trary,  subtracted  from  the  national  capital,  as  if  not 
spent  in  this  way  it  would,  if  left  in  bank  or  invested, 
be  used  in  employing  productive  labor.  But  it  is  also 
a  fallacy  to  suppose  that  the  nation  as  a  whole  spends 
more  in  luxuries  than  it  can  afford  to  spend.  When 
wiseacres  run  down  to  the  Custom-House,  examine  the 
tables  of  imports,  and  come  back  wringing  their  hands 
over  the  general  extravagance,  they  forget  that,  although 
silks  and  satins  are  imported  or  manufactured  in  bales 
and  boxes,  they  are  intended  to  be  cut  up  into  single 
dresses,  and  are  bought  by  individual  women  who,  as  a 
general  rule,  know  how  much  they  can  afford  to  lay 
out  on  such  things,  and  lay  out  this  and  no  more.  At 
the  bottom  of  two-thirds  of  the  lamentations  we  hear 


Our  Love  of  Luxury.  209 

about  the  luxury  of  the  times  there  is  the  feeling  that 
nearly  everybody  is  living  beyond  his  means.  The 
truth  is  there  is  hardly  anybody  who  does  not  live 
within  his  means.  Political  economists  have  called 
man  "  an  exchanging  animal ; "  they  might  with  almost 
as  much  accuracy  call  him  a  saving  animal.  It  needs 
very  little  reflection  to  see  that  if  the  majority  of  people, 
or  any  but  a  very  small  minority,  spent  more  than,  or 
even  as  much  as,  they  earned,  the  growth  of  wealth  in 
every  country  would  cease  altogether,  and  not  only 
this,  but  positive  decline  would  soon  begin.  Every 
house  and  church  and  bridge  and  road  and  aqueduct 
and  work  of  art  and  ornament  and  book  in  the  United 
States  is  due  to  the  general  habit  of  saving  something 
out  of  the  yearly  income.  The  enormous  increase  in 
the  total  wealth  of  the  country  which  is  recorded  in 
each  census  report  is  due  to  the  same  cause.  In  fact, 
there  is  nothing  which  people  do  more  generally,  more 
zealously,  more  eagerly,  and  more  anxiously,  than  save ; 
there  is  no  instinct  in  human  nature,  except  the  parental 
instinct,  stronger  than  the  instinct  of  accumulation. 
Therefore,  when  we  take  up  the  Custom-House  returns, 
and  read  that  this  year  and  last  year  we  bought  an 
enormous  quantity  of  champagne  and  diamonds  and 
lace  and  silks  and  pictures,  it  is  very  absurd  to  rush  to 
the  conclusion  that  we  are  ruining  ourselves  and  getting 
these  things  on  credit.  These  things  are  brought  over 
for  the  use  of  separate  families,  and  these  families  will 
not,  as  a  general  rule,  spend  one  cent  more  on  them 
than  their  income  allows  them  to  spend,  after  meeting 


210  Our  Love  of  Luxury, 

all  debts,  dues,  and  demands  and  making  a  comfortable 
provision  for  the  future.  We  should  never  think  of 
walking  into  Stewart's  store  on  Broadway  and  rebuk 
ing  the  ladies  we  saw  there  buying  expensive  dresses, 
on  the  ground  that  they  were  purchasing  things  they 
could  not  afford ;  and  yet  this  would  be  the  same  folly, 
on  a  smaller  scale,  of  which  an  editor  is  guilty  when  he 
berates  the  nation  at  large  on  this  ground  for  purchas 
ing  "foreign  luxuries."  The  process  which  is  wit 
nessed  every  day  at  Stewart's  is  going  on  in  every 
other  town  and  village.  Men  and  women  who  find 
that  they  have  money  to  spare,  go  and  spend  it  in  the 
nearest  store  on  dress  or  jewellery  or  food,  which  they 
do  not  absolutely  need,  but  which  they  do  not  choose 
to  do  without.  However,  let  business  become  "  dull," 
or,  in  other  words,  incomes  diminish,  and  forthwith  a 
great  portion  of  the  outlay  ceases.  The  mass  of  peo 
ple,  not  being  "  born  naturals,"  on  seeing  their  surplus 
dwindle,  begin  to  save  more  zealously  than  ever,  and 
cut  off  all  superfluous  outgo.  Gentlemen  who  write 
moral  articles  on  luxury  in  the  newspapers  flatter  them 
selves  that  their  warnings  are  necessary  to  bring  about 
this  result.  This  is  a  mistake.  People  save  in  hard 
times  without  hints  from  the  newspapers,  just  as  nat 
urally  as  they  put  up  their  umbrellas  when  it  begins 
to  rain.  When  they  begin  to  retrench,  of  course  the 
sale  of  luxuries  begins  to  fall  off  and  importers  cease 
to  import.  Some  importers,  of  course,  are  pretty  sure 
to  be  caught  with  a  large  stock  on  hand;  but  this  is 
the  result  of  their  own  imprudence  or  want  of  foresight. 


Our  Love  of  Luxury.  211 

We  always  read  the  newspaper  lamentations  over 
the  popular  appetite  for  "  foreign  luxuries  "  with  very 
much  the  same  feeling  that  we  read  the  Pope's  curses 
of  modern  literature  and  science,  and  consider  them, 
if  we  may  be  allowed  to  use  the  poor  man's  comment 
on  cabbage  as  an  article  of  food,  as  "filling  at  the 
money."  They  take  up  space  in  a  harmless  way,  which 
in  these  days  of  "  enterprise  "  and  "  special  despatches  " 
is  a  great  thing.  People  will  buy  luxuries  whenever 
they  have  the  money  to  spare  in  spite  of  the  news 
papers.  Certainly  newspaper  editors  are  not  the  per 
sons  to  call  them  to  account  for  it,  as  they  are  not,  we 
believe,  celebrated  for  their  ascetic  temperament,  and 
in  most  countries  are  not  found  to  "lag  behind  the 
age,"  as  the  phrase  is,  in  pursuit  of  material  comfort. 
Clergymen  might  preach  on  the  subject  with  a  better 
grace,  as  their  congregations  seem  to  enjoy  confining 
them  to  plain  living — we  presume  with  the  desire  of  hav 
ing  in  every  parish  at  least  one  model  of  Christian  sim 
plicity.  But  both  editors  and  clergymen  have  preached 
and  will  always  preach  in  vain.  The  love  of  luxury, 
that  is,  of  the  things  which,  at  any  particular  period,  or 
in  any  particular  country,  are  not  considered  necessary 
to  health  or  comfort,  has  always  existed  and  always 
will  exist,  and  is  one  of  the  great  springs  of  human 
progress.  Besides,  luxury  is  a  relative  term.  No  such 
thing  as  absolute  luxury  has  as  yet  been  discovered ; 
and  the  luxuries  of  one  generation  become  the  neces 
saries  of  the  next,  and  the  luxuries  of  one  country  are 
the  necessaries  of  another.  In  the  Middle  Ages  night- 


212  Our  Love  of  Luxury. 

shirts  were  looked  on  as  a  silly  piece  of  extravagance, 
and  people  of  all  ranks  and  classes  from  the  king  down 
slept  in  the  simple  costume  in  which  they  were  born. 
We  have  no  doubt  that  when  night-gowns  began  to 
come  into  vogue  people  were  accused  of  running  in 
debt  for  them  to  foreigners.  In  Queen  Elizabeth's 
time  the  owner  of  the  plainest  ingrain  carpet,  such  as 
may  now  be  found  in  the  house  of  every  American 
mechanic,  would  have  been  looked  upon  as  an  extrava 
gant  dog,  unless  he  were  a  great  noble,  in  which  case 
he  would  probably  have  excited  the  Queen's  jealousy 
and  been  put  in  the  Tower.  Over  the  greater  part  of 
the  world,  to  this  day,  the  spectacle  of  a  man's  brush 
ing  his  teeth  will  draw  as  large  a  crowd  as  the  district 
will  afford,  and  excite  amusement  and  disgust  in  about 
equal  proportions.  In  most  parts  of  Turkey,  taking 
sugar  habitually  in  his  coffee  would  be  considered,  in 
the  case  of  a  person  of  moderate  means,  a  sign  of 
riotous  living.  What  is  now  considered  very  poor 
claret  would  in  the  fifteenth  century  have  been  pro 
nounced  a  royal  drink,  and  we  have  no  doubt  whatever 
that  the  delicious  "  Greek  wine  "  which  the  Jews  used 
to  serve  out  in  their  back  parlors  out  of  "  curious  silver 
goblets  "  to  knights  trying  to  raise  a  loan  was  execra 
ble  stuff.  A  bath-tub,  which  most  people  of  intelli 
gence  now  think  a  necessity,  is  in  many  parts  of  the 
world,  and  even  in  many  circles  in  highly  civilized 
countries,  looked  on  as  a  kind  of  gewgaw  for  the  use 
of  men  and  women  who  have  little  to  do.  Tea  and 
coffee  were  very  idle  and  injurious  luxuries  little  more 


Our  Love  of  Luxury.  213 

than  a  century  ago.  We  might  extend  this  catalogue 
indefinitely.  There  is,  of  course,  much  to  be  said 
against  the  expenditure  of  money  in  champagne  and 
diamonds,  as  there  is  against  all  gratification  of  the 
palate  and  personal  ornamentation.  The  only  thing 
that  can  be  said  for  it  is  that  it  gives  pleasure. 

Whether  it  is  well  for  people,  even  for  those  who 
have  money  to  spare,  to  spend  money  in  luxuries,  is  a 
question  which  has  been  discussed  for  four  or  five 
thousand  years.  In  the  ancient  world  luxury  was  the 
horror  of  the  philosophers,  and  in  the  earlier  ages  of 
Christianity  it  was  the  horror  of  the  fathers  of  the 
Church,  whose  indignation  never  glowed  with  so  fierce 
a  flame  as  when  they  denounced  it.  It  is  becoming 
the  fashion  in  our  day  to  think  that  both  were  mistaken ; 
but  we  confess  we  do  not  think  they  were.  In  the 
ancient  world  both  moral  and  intellectual  culture  were 
in  so  low  a  stage  that  luxury  almost  always  assumed 
the  form  of  gross  sensual  and  selfish  indulgence,  which 
was  gratified  at  any  cost  of  suffering  to  others,  and 
there  was  hardly  any  wealth  which  was  not  the  result 
either  of  plunder  or  unrequited  toil.  Whenever  any 
community  of  that  age  grew  in  wealth,  it  was  almost 
always  as  the  result  of  conquest ;  and  the  pleasures  of 
the  great  were  apt  to  bear  a  very  strong  resemblance 
to  the  orgies  of  a  bandit's  cave.  And  we  do  not  deny 
that  luxury  in  our  own  day,  in  any  community  or  set 
or  circle  which  has  not  been  prepared  by  moral  and 
intellectual  culture  to  place  a  just  value  on  merely 
material  comfort,  and  to  make  it  what  it  should  always 


214  Our  Love  of  Luxury. 

be,  the  accompaniment  or  casing  merely  of  more  sub 
tle,  more  refined,  and  more  lasting  enjoyment,  is  apt  to 
be  about  as  repulsive  as  luxury  in  the  days  of  Sarda- 
napalus  or  Lucullus.  There  are  circles  in  Paris  and  in 
this  city  of  New  York  whose  pleasures,  if  they  were  not 
surrounded  and  held  in  check  by  a  Christian  public 
opinion,  would  become  as  animal,  and  would  display 
as  little  evidence  of  sentiment  or  taste,  as  any  which 
disgraced  the  Lower  Empire.  But  then  to  the  luxury 
to  which  the  great  mass  of  the  people  both  here  and  in 
Europe  treat  themselves,  and  to  the  measure  in  which 
they  enjoy  it,  no  just  objection  can  be  made.  The  end 
of  labor  and  of  economy  and  of  art  and  science  is 
human  enjoyment.  If  we  saved  for  the  mere  purpose 
of  heaping  up  dollars,  our  industry  and  forethought,  in 
their  moral  and  social  aspects,  would  be  in  no  respect 
superior  to  those  of  the  beaver  or  the  squirrel.  We 
save  that  we  may  enjoy — that  we  may  have  the  means 
of  gratifying  all  innocent  tastes  and  desires,  for  the 
delight  of  our  senses,  within  the  limits  prescribed  by 
religion  and  morality.  It  is,  in  fact,  to  the  love  of 
luxury  that  we  owe  nearly  all  our  progress  in  civiliza 
tion.  It  is  it  which  keeps  art  and  invention  alive  and 
busy,  and  gives  each  generation  nearly  every  material 
advance  on  its  predecessor ;  for  it  must  not  be  for 
gotten  that  the  luxuries  of  one  age  are  the  necessaries 
of  the  next.  If  we  destroyed  it,  we  should  destroy 
what  is  in  our  day  and  generation,  and  must  have  been 
in  all  times  of  progress,  the  great  spring  of  human 
activity. 


"A  PLEA  FOR  CULTURE." 

A  RECENT  number  of  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly  "  con 
tained,  under  the  above  title,  a  strong  argument  from 
the  pen  of  Mr.  T.  W.  Higginson  in  favor  of  the  cre 
ation,  by  some  means,  of  an  educated  class  amongst  us, 
to  be  the  guardian  of  the  traditions  and  feelings  and 
aspirations  of  high  culture,  and  the  diffuser  of  an  atmos 
phere  of  thought  and  study — a  kind  of  barrier,  too, 
against  the  growing  materialism  of  the  time,  the  grow 
ing  tendency  to  estimate  the  value  of  everything  in 
dollars  and  cents,  and  to  despise  or  shirk  all  discipline 
of  mind  or  body  which  does  not  promise  a  speedy  re 
turn  in  hard  cash.  The  absence  of  this  class,  and  the 
apparent  failure  of  the  universities  to  hold  out  even  any 
promise  of  it,  and  of  society  to  appreciate  it  or  call  for 
it,  furnish  to  most  cultivated  Americans  a  standing 
theme  for  lamentation.  But  an  excellent  illustration  of 
the  very  small  extent  to  which  Congress  shares  in 
these  regrets  or  longings  has  just  been  furnished  by  the 
action  of  the  Senate  in  passing  the  Tariff  bill  with  an 
ad  valorem  duty  of  85  per  cent,  on  all  English  books 
printed  since  1840.  The  publishers,  we  are  told,  not 


216  "A  Pica  for  Culture." 

satisfied  with  this,  are  endeavoring  to  have  the  duty 
changed  in  the  House  to  thirty  cents  a  pound,  and 
have  got  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  to  clap  on 
ten  cents  a  pound  on  all  English  books  printed  prior  to 
1850,  and  twenty-five  cents  a  pound  on  all  books  print 
ed  since  then. 

Now  in  legislation  of  this  kind,  of  course  the  inter 
ests  of  the  public — of  the  men  and  women  and  children 
of  the  country — are  generally  disregarded.  The  class 
interested  in  having  books  made  scarce  and  dear — if  it 
be  not  an  absurdity  to  say  this  of  any  class  in  a  com 
munity  like  ours — is,  as  compared  to  the  total  popula 
tion,  of  course  exceedingly  small.  It  will  astonish 
many  people  to  learn  that  the  whole  number  of  persons 
in  the  United  States,  male  and  female,  engaged  in 
paper-making,  printing,  type  and  stereotype  founding, 
printing-press  making,  in  making  bookbinders'  tools, 
in  bookbinding  and  publishing,  was,  in  1860,  37,723. 
The  sole  reason  for  the  existence  of  this  class,  its  sole 
use,  is  to  furnish  the  remaining  thirty  millions  with 
the  means  of  acquiring  knowledge  with  the  least 
possible  expenditure  of  time  and  money.  That  the 
people  of  this  country  shall  acquire  knowledge  easily  is 
of  paramount  importance.  Compared  with  the  ques 
tion  of  education  all  other  questions  of  our  time  sink 
into  insignificance.  Except  man's  destiny  in  the  world 
to  come,  we  know  of  no  theme  of  such  tremendous 
moment  as  the  cultivation  of  his  mental  powers  in  this. 
Suppose  all  our  publishers,  printers,  and  bookbinders 
in  the  United  States  swept  into  the  sea  to-morrow,  we 


"A  Plea  for  Culture."  217 

should  have  to  deplore  the  loss  of  many  most  respec 
table  and  most  useful  citizens,  but  in  a  few  months  we 
might  get  thirty  thousand  other  book  manufacturers, 
not  perhaps  as  good  as  they,  but  good  enough  for  the 
time  being.  But  whatever  makes  it  difficult  or  impos 
sible  for  any  considerable  number  of  the  people  to  cul 
tivate  any  field  of  knowledge  is  an  injury  to  society  of 
which  the  effects  are  incalculable  and  last  through  gen 
erations. 

It  would  be  better  for  the  nation,  we  say  deliberate 
ly,  to  settle  large  pensions  on  every  paper-maker, 
printer,  and  publisher  in  the  country,  than  have  ten 
poor  men  forced  to  deny  themselves  a  good  book  or 
ten  scholars  forced  to  limit  their  purchases.  And  yet 
publishers  have  apparently  succeeded  in  impressing 
Congress  with  the  idea  that  the  use  of 'books  is  to 
maintain  publishers  in  comfort,  and  that  authors  and 
readers  are  mere  appendages  or  ornaments  of  the  great 
bookstores,  whose  wants  and  wishes  are  of  little  impor 
tance.  In  fact,  in  all  that  regards  the  acquisition  and 
diffusion  of  knowledge,  the  legislation  of  the  last  two 
Congresses  has  been  little  better  than  might  be  expect 
ed  from  an  assemblage  of  Goths  or  Huns  dealing  with 
the  fading  and  to  them  incomprehensible  civilization 
of  the  fallen  empire.  They  have  made  books  dear  in 
a  republic  to  whose  existence  and  prosperity  the  habit 
of  reading  and  thinking  is  as  necessary  as  light  and  air 
to  individuals.  Of  their  forgetfulness  of  the  interests 
of  science  a  fine  example  has  been  afforded  in  the  tax 
on  alcohol,  which  they  made  so  enormous  as  for  a 
10 


2i8  "A  Plea  for  Culture." 

while  completely  to  arrest  in  this  country  all  researches 
in  organic  chemistry.  The  heavy  internal  taxation  has 
raised  the  price  of  all  books  produced  and  reprinted 
here  ;  the  duty  and  high  price  of  gold  have  all  but  put 
a  stop  to  the  importation  of  foreign  books.  Most  of 
the  libraries  may  be  said  to  have  ceased  to  import 
them,  and  very  few  are  now  called  for  except  by  that 
exceedingly  small  band  of  wealthy  men  who  devote 
any  attention  to  literature. 

Nothing  can  be  more  disheartening,  we  had  almost 
said  barbarous,  than  the  indifference  of  politicians — we 
do  not  use  the  word  in  any  opprobrious  sense — to  the 
interests  of  authors  and  readers — in  other  words,  of  the 
class  who  keep  civilization  alive  and  make  progress, 
either  mental  or  material,  possible.  There  are  very 
few  men  in  Congress — we  cannot  name  one  with  confi 
dence  except  Mr.  Sumner — who  have  kept  the  interests 
of  literature  and  science  in  view  during  the  confused 
financial  legislation  of  the  last  four  or  five  years.  We 
have  before  us  a  letter  from  a  gentleman,  himself  an 
author,  who  has  taken  a  good  deal  of  interest  in  the 
copyright  question.  In  telling  us  of  the  results  of  his 
efforts  to  call  the  attention  of  some  of  our  legislators 
to  the  concern  which  our  writers  and  thinkers  have  in 
all  legislation  affecting  literary  property,  he  says  that 
one  orator,  not  unknown  to  fame,  and  who  doubtless 
can  spout  by  the  hour  on  great  moral  questions,  cut 
short  their  conversation  by  saying  :  "  I  do  not  take  any 
interest  in  the  question  of  authorship,  and  I  do  not  be 
lieve  anybody  can  make  me  take  an  interest  in  it ; " 


"A  Plea  for  Culture"  219 

just  such  a  reply  as  a  Gothic  warrior  of  the  sixth  cen 
tury  might  have  made  to  a  Roman  jurist  pleading  for  a 
guard  for  his  library  in  a  town  captured  by  the  bar 
barians. 

There  is  a  class  of  books  which  can  be  produced, 
and  is  produced,  just  as  well  in  this  country  as  in  Eng 
land,  and  with  regard  to  which  the  American  author 
and  publisher  might,  with  some  decency,  ask  for  pro 
tection — we  mean  school-books,  novels,  and  books  of 
travel.  In  these  particular  fields  of  literature  the  read 
ing  public  does  not  suffer  very  much  from  heavy  import 
duties.  Any  portion  of  this  class  of  works  which  is  at 
all  valuable  American  publishers  are  likely  to  reprint, 
or  would  reprint  if  the  internal  revenue  system  were  re 
formed.  Those  which  they  would  not  reprint,  society 
here  would  not  suffer  seriously  from  never  seeing.  But 
there  is  a  large  class  of  books,  historical,  scientific, 
legal,  politico-economical,  and  metaphysical,  of  which 
the  English  press  is  very  prolific,  either  original  or 
translated  in  London  from  the  French  or  German,  for 
which  there  is  in  America  no  popular  demand,  and 
which  therefore  publishers  do  not  reprint,  and  for  which 
no  substitute  is  provided  here.  It  is  the  product  of  the 
higher  cultivation  of  the  Old  World,  and  of  which  it  is 
not  only  our  interest  but  our  duty  to  avail  ourselves,  if 
we  mean  to  maintain  our  place  or  win  a  higher  one  in 
civilization.  This  class  of  books  is  mainly  sought  for 
by  scholars  and  students,  whose  means  are  generally 
limited,  and  to  the  wealthiest  of  whom  an  addition  of 
forty  or  fifty  per  cent,  in  the  price  of  books  is  a  serious 


220  "  A  Plea  for  Culture." 

matter.  The  tax  gain  to  the  Government  from  even  a 
light  duty  on  books  of  this  kind  would  be  too  small  to 
be  worth  counting  ;  the  gain  from  such  a  duty  as  is  now 
proposed  would  be  absolutely  nothing,  for  the  tax  is  all 
but  prohibitory.  The  publishers  will  not  profit  by  it, 
for,  as  we  have  said,  they  would  not  reprint  these  books, 
and  native  authors  can  hardly  produce  any  books  to 
compete  with  them,  if  the  word  compete  can  ever  be 
applied  in  a  commercial  sense  to  the  efforts  made  by 
men  of  thought  and  learning  to  swell  the  sum  of  human 
knowledge. 

It  cannot  be  too  well  understood  or  too  often  re 
peated,  however,  that  the  progress  of  a  nation  is  not 
kept  up  simply  by  the  general  diffusion  of  a  small  degree 
of  education,  such  as  men  get  in  district  schools  or 
"  pick  up  "  in  the  spare  moments  of  a  busy  life.  We 
might  all  know  how  to  read,  write,  and  cipher,  and 
might  all  possess  a  passable  acquaintance  with  what  is 
called  "  polite  literature,"  and  have  a  high  respect  for 
knowledge,  and  yet  settle  down  for  ages  in  a  state  in  no 
respect  superior  to  that  of  the  Chinese.  The  move 
ment  of  the  world  towards  purer  manners  and  nobler 
laws  ;  towards  larger  liberty,  deeper  insight ;  its  growth 
in  faith  and  hope,  and  in  moral  and  material  power,  is 
due  to  the  labors  of  a  comparatively  small  number  of 
thinkers.  Nearly  all  great  advances  in  civilization  are 
brought  about  by  the  labors  of  men  of  high  culture  and 
deep  thought.  They  conceive  what  others  execute ; 
and  it  is  the  duty  and  interest  of  every  nation,  even  of 
those  who  consider  material  comfort  to  be  the  highest 


"A  Pica  for  Culture."  221 

good,  to  make,  by  all  available  means,  the  labors  of  its 
men  of  science  easy  and,  if  possible,  pleasant.  So  far 
from  discouraging  them  here,  there  is  no  country  in  the 
world  in  which  they  need  to  be  more  cherished  and 
encouraged.  We  could  name  half  a  dozen  men  of 
letters  and  of  science  in  this  country  who  are  of  more 
value  to  the  nation  than  double  the  whole  number  of 
booksellers  and  printers  which  it  now  contains,  to  whose 
door  it  would  "pay"  for  the  Government  to  deliver 
gratis  every  work  of  importance  that  appears  in  any 
part  of  the  world.  To  make  it  difficult  'for  such  men 
to  become  acquainted  with  the  result  of  the  labors  of 
their  confreres  in  other  countries,  is  to  attack  civilization 
itself.  Those  who  suppose,  as  some  Congressmen  seem 
to  do,  that  the  newspaper  is  the  only  kind  of  literature 
that  America  needs,  and  that  the  "  reportorial  corps," 
as  it  calls  itself,  can  supply  all  the  facts  that  American 
students  need  to  know,  differ  less  than  they  imagine 
from  the  caliph  who  burnt  the  Alexandrian  Library  on 
the  theory  of  the  all-sufficiency  of  the  Koran. 


CURIOSITIES  OF  LONGEVITY. 


EVERYBODY  likes  to  hear  of  cases  of  remarkable 
longevity.  Everybody,  indeed,  affirms  that  he  does  not 
wish  to  attain  to  it  himself,  but  nobody  that  we  know 
of  seems  to  be  in  any  hurry  to  die  in  order  to  avoid  it. 
It  is  a  perfectly  natural  and  laudable  feeling,  however. 
A  very  old  person  is  a  kind  of  living  monument  of  past 
times ;  and  this  even  if  it  be  a  slave  who  had  never  left 
his  plantation,  or  a  peasant  who  had  lived  out  his  cen 
tury  on  the  estate  where  he  was  born.  What  revolu 
tions,  what  wars,  what  changes  have  come  over  the 
world  since  he  first  drew  the  breath  of  life !  He  has 
stood  still,  but  what  a  marvellous  procession  of  per 
sonages  and  events  has  swept  over  the  earth  since  he 
has  inhabited  it !  One  cannot  help  thinking  what  a 
different  world  was  the  one  he  left  from  that  he  entered. 
This  interest  is  naturally  much  greater  and  this  senti 
ment  stronger  when  the  person  exciting  them  has  been 
an  actor  in  the  events  or  a  companion  of  the  person 
ages  that  have  so  changed  the  face  of  things,  or  even 
if  he  have  been  but  a  spectator  of  the  one  and  a  chance 
acquaintance  of  the  other.  Such  instances  seem  to 


224  Curiosities  of  Longevity. 

connect  and  bring  close  together  points  of  time  which 
appear  to  us  infinitely  distant  from  each  other.  There 
was  the  Marquis  di  Manso,  for  instance,  who  was  the 
common  friend  of  Tasso  and  of  Milton,  though  the 
Italian  died  more  than  ten  years  before  the  English 
epic  poet  was  born.  It  were  almost  worth  one's  while 
to  have  been  dead  two  hundred  years  to  have  had  such 
luck  as  that.  Lady  Louisa  Stuart,  the  daughter  of  the 
famous  Earl  of  Bute,  whom  our  pre-revolutionary  sires 
used  to  burn  vicariously  in  the  similitude  of  a  boot,  died 
since  1850,  and  actually  remembered  her  grandmother, 
Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montague,  who  died  in  1762. 
She  wrote  the  introductory  anecdotes  to  Lord  Wharn- 
cliffe's  edition  of  Lady  Mary's  works.  She  had  seen 
every  celebrity  of  the  last  half  of  the  last  century,  and 
known  most  of  them,  from  Johnson  down  to  Dickens 
and  Tennyson,  and  was  the  intimate  friend  and  corre 
spondent  of  Scott,  and  one  of  the  original  depositaries 
of  the  secret  of  the  authorship  of  the  Waverley  novels. 
Rogers,  "  the  bard,  the  beau,  the  banker,"  was  al 
most  exactly  her  contemporary,  and  must  have  known 
many  personal  acquaintances  of  Pope,  Swift  and  Guy, 
and  possibly  of  Addison  and  Steele.  The  Berry 
sisters,  who  covered  about  the  same  period  of  time 
with  their  lives,  and  who  might  have  been,  one  or  both 
of  them,  Dowager  Countess  of  Orford,  as  the  widow  of 
Horace  Walpole,  for  more  than  fifty  years  were  links 
connecting  the  long  past  with  the  present,  and  bringing 
famous  people  of  more  than  a  century  ago  almost  into 
contact  with  the  present  generation.  Then  "  Queeny  " 


Curiosities  of  Longevity.  225 

Thrale,  who  was  Johnson's  "  plaything  often  when  a 
child,"  and  his  familiar  acquaintance  as  a  grown-up 
young  lady,  and  to  whom  he  gave  his  blessing  on  his 
death-bed,  has  not  been  ten  years  dead  yet ;  she  may 
have  remembered  Goldsmith,  and  certainly  knew  every 
other  member  of  the  Literary  Club  and  every  social 
and  political  celebrity  of  the  last  ninety  years.  She 
was  the  second  wife  of  the  great  Admiral  Lord  Keith. 

But  the  instance  of  English  longevity  in  the  higher 
ranks  which  seems  to  have  brought  distant  points  of 
time  nearest  together  was  that  of  the  Dowager  Countess 
of  Hardwicke,  who  died,  in  1858,  at  near  a  hundred 
years  old.  Her  father,  the  Scotch  Earl  of  Balcarras, 
was  "  out  in  the  Fifteen "  with  Lord  Derwenter  and 
Forster,  and  his  life  was  spared  through  the  interces 
sion  of  the  great  Duke  of  Marlborough.  There  were 
two  lives  of  father  and  daughter  which  covered  more 
than  half  of  this  century,  all  of  the  last,  and  ten  years 
or  more  of  the  seventeenth !  It  is  a  little  odd  that  a 
person  should  have  been  living  eight  years  ago  whose 
father  was  strictly  a  contemporary  of  the  Old  Pretend 
er,  of  Pope  and  Chesterfield,  of  Voltaire,  and  a  gener 
ation  that  looks  to  us  as  belonging  to  ancient  history. 
He  was,  of  course,  well  stricken  in  years  when  his 
daughter  was  born.  But  this  was  not  the  only  curious 
fact  about  this  longevous  dame.  Her  grandfather  was 
born  in  1649,  the  year  distinguished  by  the  lesson  in 
natural  history  which,  according  to  old  Lord  Auchin- 
leck,  BoswelPs  father,  was  taught  to  kings,  viz.,  that 
"  they  have  a  joint  in  their  necks  ;  "  and  when  he  mar- 
10* 


226  Curiosities  of  Longevity. 

ried  her  grandmother,  that  most  religious  king,  Char 
les  II.,  gave  away  the  bride. 

Within  the  last  month  (February,  1866)  a  long  life 
came  to  an  end  in  Boston,  breaking  one  of  the  last 
links  that  connect  the  present  times  with  those  before 
the  Revolution.  In  June,  1774,  Copley,  the  great 
portrait-painter,  the  American  Van  Dyke,  sailed  for 
England  in  the  last  ship  that  left  the  port  of  Boston 
before  the  oppressive  Port  Bill  which  closed  it  went 
into  effect.  His  three  children,  a  son  and  two  daugh 
ters,  accompanied  him.  Two  years  ago,  all  three  of 
these  children  were  alive.  A  few  weeks  since,  two  of 
them  were  still  living,  and  one  yet  survives  in  England. 
The  son,  we  need  hardly  say,  was  the  late  Lord  Lynd- 
hurst,  three  times  Chancellor,  for  many  years  the 
leader,  in  the  Lords,  of  the  Tory  party,  and  the  origin 
ator,  in  his  extreme  old  age,  of  some  of  the  most  im 
portant  reforms  that  have  ever  been  made  in  the  Eng 
lish  law.  He  was  the  Nestor  of  English  statesmen, 
not  only  in  having  survived  three  generations  of  breath 
ing  men,  but  in  eloquence  and  in  political  wisdom,  both 
of  which  seemed  to  increase  with  his  years,  and  were 
never  more  marked  than  when  he  was  on  the  verge  of 
fourscore  and  ten.  The  elder  sister,  Mrs.  Elizabeth 
Copley  Greene,  died  in  Boston,  only  last  year,  at 
the  age  of  ninety-five.  This  venerable  lady  closed  a 
life  as  singularly  prosperous  and  happy  as  it  was  long 
by  a  death  of  perfect  tranquillity  and  ease.  She  fur 
nished  one  of  the  rare  instances  of  a  life  completely 
rounded,  and  ceasing  from  no  disease  or  accident,  but 


Curiosities  of  Longevity.  227 

simply  and  purely  because  the  vital  machine  had  grad 
ually  and  painlessly  worn  itself  out  and  stopped.  The 
growing  infirmities  of  age  had  withdrawn  her  for  some 
years  from  general  society,  of  which  she  naturally  stood 
at  the  head  from  her  high  social  position,  her  dignified, 
graceful,  and  charming  manners,  her  animated  and 
varied  conversation,  and  her  kindliness  and  friendli 
ness  of  heart.  She  was  liberal,  hospitable,  and  chari 
table  in  the  dispensing  of  a  large  estate,  and  discharged 
all  the  offices  of  a  responsible  position  conscientiously 
and  with  dignity.  She  will  long  be  remembered  by 
those  who  had  the  privilege  of  her  personal  acquaint 
ance  as  a  most  interesting  example  of  one  who  had 
lived  one  life,  as  it  were,  in  the  last  century,  and  with  a 
generation  which  exists  to  us  only  in  history  or  tradi 
tion,  before  she  had  begun  another  long  and  various 
life  in  this  hemisphere. 

It  was  odd  to  sit  and  talk  with  one  who  had  known 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  familiarly,  not  as  a  child,  but  as  a 
young  lady.  Copley  and  Sir  Joshua  both  lived  on 
Leicester  square,  which  had  not  then  been  mediatized 
and  reduced  to  its  present  dilapidated  state.  It  was  a 
well-reputed  place  of  residence  in  those  days,  and  its 
flags  were  trodden  by  many  a  famous  visitor  of  its  in 
habitants.  The  families  of  the  president  of  the  Academy 
and  of  Copley,  one  of  its  chief  members,  were  on  terms 
of  familiar  intimacy,  and  Mrs.  Greene  used  to  delight 
to  expatiate  on  the  perfect  manners  and  Old  World 
grace  of  Sir  Joshua,  and  to  describe  the  society  she 
used  to  meet  at  his  delightful  house.  From  the  posi- 


228  Curiosities  of  Longevity. 

tion  of  her  father  she  had  seen  all  and  known  many  of 
the  chief  celebrities  of  every  kind  of  the  last  quarter  of 
the  last  century.     She  was,  perhaps,  the  last  survivor 
of  the  spectators  of  that  splendid  scene  in  "  the  great 
hall  of  William  Rufus,"  which  Macaulay  has  painted  in 
such  gorgeous  coloring — the  opening  of  the  impeach 
ment  of  Warren  Hastings — where  "  were  collected  to 
gether  grace  and  female  loveliness,  wit  and  learning, 
the  representatives  of  every  science  and  of  every  art." 
Of  all  that  splendid  audience,  it  is  not  likely  that  a 
single  one  is  now  alive  after  the  lapse  of  seventy-eight 
years.     To  hear  an  actual  eye-witness  bear  testimony 
to  the  truth  of  the  description,  and  describe  the  appear 
ance  of  Burke  and  Fox  and  Sheridan  in  the  fore  front 
of  the  Commons  of  England  as  the  managers  of  the  im 
peachment,  almost  seemed  to  bring  one  into  personal 
relations  with  the  scene  and  the  actors,  and  to  make 
them  present  to  the  mind  rather  as  recollections  than 
imaginary  presentments.      Two    days   afterwards  she 
heard  the  great  opening  speech  of  Burke,  which  has  pass 
ed  into  literature  as  an  example  of  eloquence  not  excelled 
in  ancient  or  modern  times.     Very  few  persons,  if  a 
single  one,  can  be  yet  living,  on  whose  ears  that  voice, 
now  silent  for  all  but  seventy  years,  can  have  ever 
fallen,  and  probably  not  one  who  heard  that  crowning 
triumph  of  its  power.     These  are  things  which  make 
one  feel  that  the  long  past  and  the  present  are  not  sep 
arated  by  sharp  divisions,  as  it  is  apt  to  seem  to  us  at 
a  distance,  but  glide  gradually  and  imperceptibly  into 
one  another,  kindred  drops  of  one  great  stream  of  time. 


Curiosities  of  Longevity.  229 

About  the  beginning  of  this  century  Miss  Copley, 
being  then  about  thirty  years  of  age,  married  Gardiner 
Greene,  of  Boston,  a  man  of  large  fortune  and  a  gentle 
man  of  the  old  school  of  finished  courtesy  and  perfect 
politeness.  Here  another  life  of  some  sixty-five  years 
was  past.  Her  residence  for  about  the  half  of  it  was 
in  one  of  those  old  pre-revolutionary  houses,  built  and 
its  accompaniments  laid  out  before  land  was  sold  by 
the  square  foot.  Such  were  to  be  found  in  all  our 
large  cities  forty  years  ago,  and  especially  in  Boston, 
before  the  ruthless  hand  of  improvement  had  swept 
them  out  of  its  way.  The  tradition  is,  that  it  was  the 
quarters  for  a  portion  of  the  time  of  the  siege  of  Bos 
ton,  at  least,  of  Earl  Percy,  and  it  was  certainly  occu 
pied  by  Mrs.  Hayley,  the  sister  of  John  Wilkes,  whose 
lot  was  cast  in  some  way  inexplicable  by  us  upon  Bos 
ton  for  a  while.  It  stood  on  the  slope  of  one  of  the 
three  hills  which  gave  Boston  its  second  title  of  Tri- 
mountain,  and  was  approached  by  flights  of  steps 
through  a  spacious  "front  yard."  The  garden  behind 
the  house  was  terraced  to  the  top  of  the  hill,  which  was 
crowned  by  large  forest  trees — English  elms,  if  we 
recollect  aright.  Here  it  abutted  upon  other  gardens 
on  the  other  slopes  of  the  hill.  It  was  a  unique  place, 
with  "  no  second  and  no  third  "  like  unto  it  that  we 
know  of  in  any  city.  It  should  have  been  bought  by 
the  city  and  preserved  as  a  pleasure-ground  for  the 
people.  But  aldermen  are  not  aesthetic  in  their  ideas, 
and  the  speculators  stepped  in  and  it  all  soon  vanished 
out  of  sight.  They  had  faith  sufficient  to  remove  the 


230  Curiosities  of  Longevity. 

fair  hill  and  cause  it  to  be  cast  into  the  sea,  and  to 
conjure  up  heaps  of  brick  and  mortar  in  its  place.  We 
are  happy  to  believe,  however,  that  the  speculation  was 
a  very  bad  one.  In  this  charming  abode  Miss  Copley 
lived  out  her  second  generation  of  men,  with  another 
thirty  years  to  spare  before  her  summons  came.  What 
changes  had  she  not  seen  come  over  the  face  of  the 
world  since  she  entered  it !  The  American  Revolu 
tion,  and  its  daughter,  that  of  France,  the  whole  career 
of  Bonaparte,  the  entire  history  of  the  United  States, 
from  the  Convention  of  1787  to  the  crushing  of  the 
slaveholders'  rebellion  !  Did  any  ninety-five  years  ever 
comprise  more  eventful  and  fruitful  history  than  hers  ? 
We  think  not,  and  believe  that  her  example  well  de 
serves  to  be  added  to  those  we  have  related  as  one  of 
the  curiosities  of  longevity. 


THE  END. 


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